Ascending Light
by logansfirecracker
Summary: The life and times of Nessie Cullen, many new characters will pop up. This story has been a great hit, I am not very good with summaries, but if you are a Nessie fan than you will like this fic, drop by, read a bit and leave feedback, thanks and hope you.
1. Introduction

Introduction

To start things off, let's get the federal accusations taken care of. I do NOT own any of the characters here, they belong to Stephanie Meyers. I do not make claim to own any of them, but later on in the story I shall be introducing a few of my own characters, you are fore-warned now and will be again when the characters are actually introduced.

'Ascending Light' is my continuing tale of Stephanie Meyers Twilight Series. It is focused on the life of Renesmme, the daughter of Bella and Edward Cullen, though if you are hear reading this fiction than you already know that don't you?

The story focuses on the relationship between "Nessie" and Jacob Black, and is played around with through all structural's and major occurrences in her young, abnormal life.

If you take a liking to this story than you would more than likely enjoy the group I recently started for this project. I have so many ideas to put into this fic, that I know it will be a long term project, so I went ahead and made it more easy for myself by constructing a YAHOO group page, "Ascending Light" is the title to it, there are pic's, will be more chaps and discussion boards, for those who are true fans to not only the story, but the characters, and yes of course Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, will be discussed as well.

I hope the fic is a success, enough so that people leave feed-back, appropriate feedback. Don't trash the work, I will tell you now, their will be errors, I am not a scholar of writing and my fic's are simply spell checked, not beta'd or anything extravagant, so there's the warning. I won't beg for comments, plain and simple like all good writers, the more feedback you get the faster the chaps come.

"Well, That's All Folks!" Hope you Enjoy!


	2. Continual Beginning

When I first awoke my eyes were instantly irritated with the light that illuminated from my lamp on the night table. I slowly allowed them to adjust to the glow and for a few moments contemplated just shoving my head under the pillows and hoping that would suffice enough for my mind to pull me back into a dreary unconsciousness, yet I knew there was no way I was going to be able to get back to sleep now that I had woken. That was one of my plentiful tiffs, once I fell asleep I was out, and then the moment I woke, I was up, even if I was tired. My grandfather had said something about my 'inherited continuous adrenaline rush' being the problem, my body itched for movement and physical activity, though my mind demanded rest. Needless to say my body normally won out.

I turned to look at my alarm clock on my night stand, 3:08 am. I sighed and groggily pushed myself up to sit on my bed, I could hear out my door, down the stairs and in the living room, my family. Or to be more specific, I heard my uncle. Hooping and hollering, it sounded as though he had just been bested in something, it didn't really matter what, anything that anybody beat him in was a lick to his pride, and no one would rest easy until a rematch had been planned and the other had resigned to ultimately allocating Uncle Emmett the victory.

I pulled the covers back and climbed from my bed, rolled my shoulders back to rid myself of the sore kink in my left shoulder, and then made my way to my vanity and looked myself over in the massive mirror that adorned the top of it. My hair was a vibrant bronze colored mess, all 19 inches of it. I grabbed my brush and attempted a save for my hair, but after running the brush through my tangled locks about five times I gave up, it was easier to unknot when I had just got out of the shower, it looked slightly decent now, but I wasn't to worried about it, there was no one here I was trying to impress, the only reason I had even thought of it was cause I knew that if I didn't at least try to dull down the damage of my all but restful sleep than my aunt would be all over me about a make over or something, doing my hair and all, which don't get me wrong I usually loved, but for right now I simply just wanted to be… yeah, just be.

My appearance was as ever "perfect" as everyone would constantly tell me. My skin completely clear, and a pale that matched my dad's hand for hand, though my cheeks were slightly more flushed than normal, oh well, I looked like the average thirteen year old, body wise anyway. I was thin but not skinny, fit, I guess one would say. The black tank top I wore fitted my small torso; my yellow sleep pants though hung loose yet remained in place thanks to the tie that was double knotted at my abdomen. Yes, the perfect form for any thirteen year old, the only hitch between me and my physical appearance of the teen form was the fact that I was 'physically' only six years old. Just one of those minor factors of being half human and half vampire, but who else would know that but her, well Nahuel would, but he didn't really count, he was already the form of a guy in his twenties, though he had been around like her dad forever.

It had been explained by Nahuel to her mom, dad and grams, that at the ripe old age of 4 and a half, my growth spurts would slow astonishingly and by 7 would appear to have stopped all together, so that's to say toddler years went quite fast for me, a few months was the amount of time spent with the terrible twos, although she must admit she was a fairly easy child to handle, thanks primarily to her and her fathers gifts of communication. It was quite easy to keep her happy and content.

But she was at the time now in her life, the teen years, the most dramatic and yet craved portion of life, where her aging would all but completely stop, 15 had been the answer to her mother's question of what stature of physical appearance she could expect to become more accustomed to through her never ending existence. Apparently in 80 years I would finally make it to the physique of 19 or possibly 20. I sighed once again at my ruffled appearance, I grabbed a scrunchie and through my hair into a low, sloppy ponytail and then quickly left my room to go and see what the commotion was downstairs.

Making my way down the long ivory,eighteenth century decked out hallway, I had to side-step many times around large boxes that sat stacked from right up against the wall to the middle of the large walkway. You would think 'Gremma' and Alice would have had everything unpacked and in proper permanent place by now, after all, they had finished unloading the moving van by 11 that night, plenty of time to have this Victorian residence in proper order.

It had been a long day though; a move from New Hampshire to Quailton would have been a major trip for any family. Any family that wasn't hers that is. Both her parents had been accepted to 'Dartmouth' a college that was the pristine school of every human parent's dreams for their off-spring. So after a couple years of 'family life' and the perceptional time gap for her mother's and her own 'newborn' years which included two other previous moves, they relocated to New Hampshire, where her parents attended and finished Dartmouth within three years. Mom had needed a lot of help from dad, he had gone through the whole 'charade' and already had four diplomas from 'Dartmouth', and that's not including his others, also from various high-arched universities. They classed through summers though as well, which is the only reason they ended up graduating early.

I knew we were there for more than just educational obligations. My growth spurts were a main source for our continuous relocating. I had never been to school, mom said other kids wouldn't understand my rapid physical changes, she said that once everything slowed down then I could start school, but dad and my aunt "Rosie" made sure I didn't miss out on any educational needs. My mom told me I was born brilliant, and common sense wise, I guess she was right, but I was just as educated on curriculum courses as the next four year old, so I had nothing. So my dad and aunt decided to change that, and I have to say, they did a pretty good job, I am well up to pace with all the history, which happens to be my favorite subject, I might add. Science, Writing and English don't prove a problem either. I can in fact speak a couple different languages, thanks to the practice with 'Grams' and dad. But math, ughh…I was simply a lost cause for that subject, my dad says I inherited it from my mom, she can't do math at all, but science and everything else she's always ready to step up to the plate, for when I do have a question which is rare. I have true belief that math is evil, plain, pure, concentrated evil. Even aunt Rosie tried her hand at helping me in the math department, after all she had graduated twice from 'Brown' with her teaching degree, but after a couple months of relentless mental hammering of the subject, with no progress, she too aborted the hapless mission of making my mind comprehend the torture that was equations.

So anyhow, mom and dad graduated, and then within the couple following months it was time to move, again. And within a few days we had this place, Vira manor.

Gremma loved the old Victorian styled houses. That's all we ever lived in, we had moved only a few times, Gremma's house in Forks was Victorian, our house in New Hampshire was Victorian, and this house was just as "Viki decked", as Jacob would put it, as the others. I liked it, the style made me feel comfortable.

It had been decided to move to Quailton for three reasons, the first, 'Grams'. He had been offered a job here, actually his employment had been practically begged for at the Quailton Union Hospital, he was going to be getting paid over twice of what he was getting in New Hampshire, so that was a plus, not like we really cared about the money or anything, but it was always a plus to see how much you were worth to some, and Grams was worth a whole lot. My family had been around for so long, and with the many 'talents' they possessed, lotteries, ball-picks and stock changes were easily enough deciphered and so money was not even a consideration, we would all be taken care of for at least 12 or 13 more lifetimes, and that was with what was just in the Swiss bank account. Two, I was going to be starting school, like an actual school. It was exciting, I would be starting 7th grade in about 30 hours. The bad part was, I was gonna be attending school with my mom and dad, and both my aunt's and uncle's too. With this the case, all of us returning to school, we needed to be located in an area where the outside, or really just the sunlight wouldn't be so much an issue for us, and Quailton was a rural area that was most the time dreary and rainy, much like my beloved home in Forks, and it also had amazing potential for hunting. And three, Quailton was just an 11 hour run to La Push. So it was easy for my Jacob to run home and see his dad and to also tend to his pack. And with him being a werewolf and his pace giving even dad a run for his money, it was no problem.

I smiled to myself, Jacob, my best friend, my confidant, my partner in "crime" my dad would sometimes call him. He was amazing to me; I can truly not remember a time and don't truly wish to, when he was not with me. Well, never for a period that extended over three days anyhow. He was never gone long, and rarely ever left; he had an apartment house around back, just like at our other location in New Hampshire. He was frequently invited by both my parents and grandparents to take up one of the many spare bedrooms we always seemed to have even though there was really no use to them. Jacob always declined though, stating that he was positive that even though HE disliked my aunt Rosie with a passion, a rare few in the house valued her, and that he was semi convinced they would like to keep her around for another couple of centuries. Needless to say, Aunt Rosie and Jacob didn't get along to well, it was fun sometimes to hear their verbal throw-downs, my uncles and dad were normally amused by them too, but when things would start to get a little heated or mom didn't like the 'language' she _thought_ I was going to hear, she or Gremma would break it up. But Jacob had told me the real reason he couldn't move in, he really just couldn't handle the smell of my family. Which I thought was funny because Uncle Emmett and Aunt Rosie and even Uncle Jasper said the same thing about him. But everyone smelled fine to me, Jasper had tried to explain to me about the stench and stuff, but I just didn't get it. Jacob thought I smelled fine, and expressed that it was more than likely because I had my mom's old human scent, and it more than overpowered the 'vamp stench' he would say .

I slowly made my way down the stairs and then took to my left; I walked through the vestibule and stopped in the doorway to the exceedingly large den. Everyone was present except for my grandparents and my aunt Rosie, Uncle Emmett was on his feet with a remote in his hands, and his features strongly upset as he stared at the TV screen. Uncle Jasper sat on the floor up against the coffee table with a smug grin on his face and triumph in his eyes as he maneuvered a remote he to held. Aunt Alice sat beside him Indian style bent slightly over and laughing hard, obviously at Uncle Emmett.

My mom was curled up on the couch with a ratty book lying open in front of her on the sofa's arm rest, she was reading contently, while my dad sat on the floor up against the front of the arm rest, his legs stretched and crossed out in front of him, a car magazine laid open on his lap. His Right arm was propped up on the sofa and his hand was gently massaging my mom's foot.

My dad was the first to notice me, "Hey, Cee-ceece" he said as he moved the magazine from his lap to the floor, the pages still displayed. My mom read a few more short seconds trailing the printed wording with her slender finger, then she paused and looked to me with her, well, let's go with 'radiant' smile.

Uncle Jasper and Aunt Alice, noticed me as well. I'm sure uncle Emmett had too, but his face appeared still distraught with his latest defeat, as he watched the television. "Nessie, yer up!" my aunt cried, also with a radiant smile and then her face fell as she spoke her next sentence. "Your hair looks horrible." I ran my hand over the top of my head to smooth any strays I might have missed.

"It does not." My mother said firmly, with a glance to Alice. My Aunt rolled her eyes and then looked back to me, and her smile re-appeared again, and she with alarming speed pushed herself up and came over to me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders she said, "Not that bad, but I'll make it perfect, than you'll match." She said her smile slightly growing. I looked down at my yellow and black attire and fear hit my mind for a brief moment, what was she going to do to my hair.

My dad let out a curt laugh, making known he'd witnessed my last mental thought and sensed my growing tension. My aunt had noticed, my own inspection of my facade and then said with a giggle, "Not your…clothes" my eyes squinted just slightly, I noticed how she refrained from using the word outfit, when Alice did that, it was the closest thing to an insult you would get from her, "Your face." She finished, giving me a slight squeeze. "See, even crawling out of bed, you still just….what's that word I'm going for Bella?" she said looking at my mom with a mischievous grin. Uncle Jasper gave a small laugh too and even Uncle Emmett's face displayed a large smile.

My dad grinned, and turned to look up at my mom, whose face was that of someone who was debating on to whether or not 'cole-cock' someone. My mother let out a practiced sigh, and glared at my aunt. I too looked at my Aunt, who only smiled and gave me a playful wink, "Edward, you know the word I'm looking for, it's…umm..up..up..up..up.." she started again, making a display of herself as truly pondering for the word she knew she meant but played she couldn't remember to pronounce.

I looked to my dad, with a face that practically begged for rescue. I noticed him give a light squeeze to my mother's foot that he had been massaging and then he spoke, "Dazzle, I believe is the term you're going for Alice." He said giving me a small wink.

"Dazzle! That's it! You Dazzle! Nessie. Though you know that's a trait you get from your dad…" She continued with a small laugh but my mother cut her off.

"Alright, already." My mother was irritated, but not angry. There was some kind of hidden meaning behind the whole 'dazzle' thing and it was something that if my mom were still human she would be totally beet red over. I didn't get the joke.

My mom shut her book, and then made to go and get off the couch. "Where are you going?" my dad turned and asked her. "I filed my nails earlier, you know for an easier hunt this afternoon. I think I'm gonna see how well they work." She said.

"Bells, you know you won't be able to touch her." Emmett said, Alice gave him a short smirk.

"Oh, I'm not going for Alice, I'm going for her new, leather Del Vor' bag." My mother jumped over my dad and made a start for the door, in what could be considered a run, but my Aunt had beaten her, the threat of any attire or accessories in this household, being damaged, that were not my mothers before she became totally vamped out, or a few of mine now, was utterly the most frightening course of action my aunt could think of. She had bounded out of the room with a screech and was gone before I could even turn to see her exiting form, in haste to hide the new bag she had flaunted around yesterday. My mom stopped abruptly when she got by my side, a satisfied smile on her gorgeous face, she turned to me and dropped a quick kiss on the top of my head.

"Rescued" she said with a small laugh, and then turned and walked back to the couch, stepping over my dad, she sat back down. My dad was grinning, suppressing the urge to laugh aloud, though my uncle Emmett saw fit to laugh loudly.


	3. Past Times

I slowly walked the few feet to where my parents were, still a little groggy from sleep, stepping around my dad's magazine I turned and sat in his lap. I laid my head down in the crook of his neck, the top of my head was very cold, but I loved the feel of it. He wrapped his arms around me, and allowed the side of his face to rest gently against my forehead; my dad's body was always freezing compared to mine, due simply to the fact that I ran and extremely high temperature. But I was acustomed to the feel of my parents, my whole family actually, I had grown immune to their temperatures.

I loved how perfectly I fit in his arms, in height I came up just a little below his collarbone, so to the naked eye, I looked a little to big to be in his lap, yet I still fit perfectly against his chest. My dad and I had a much closer relationship than my mother and I. Like don't get me wrong, me and my mom are tight, but my dad was a little more into me, probably because of our communication habits. I had recently triggered a new 'talent' we were calling it. Apparently with a little maturity on my part, we discovered that I had a bit of my mother's mental blocking ability, though I had to focus on it to get it to work, and mom had to do just the same to make it stop, little bit of a twist there.

Dad and I communicate mentally all the time, though it's not really a, what you would call normal conversation. Dad can hear other people, what their thinking and stuff, everyone but my mom that is, although mom was learning how to 'play' with her gift as well and she liked to mess with dad a lot, that is in allowing him to hear her sometimes, but it was something she had to focus on, and then I could 'talk' to people through contact. That is, all I had to do was touch them, and we could be on our way to a very lovely conversation, a mind raid if you will. Mom wanted me to start using words, fearing I might have a speech impediment if I relied sorely on my 'gift' for communication, I mean really, who asks a toddler to use a large vocabulary! But the majority of the household agreed with her, not that I should give it up completely, but so as to better blend in with the rest of the world in the near future, not rely on it so heavily. It took a couple weeks, but I fell into consistent verbal converse and only to Jacob and my dad would I chance my gift.

A year and a half ago or maybe two was when we made the discovery of my new 'gift'; I remember dad was totally getting on my case about something. I recollect I was being a bit of a brat, but I am more than positive I was provoked into that behavior. Dad was rambling some kind of reprimand that I didn't want to hear, and I remember covering my ears, squeezing my eyes shut as tightly as I could and trying to drone it out, and amazingly enough, I did. My dad was a mix between furious and awed. Though the 'awe' won over when he realized he couldn't here my thoughts, when my mind was a complete silence, I remember he had to actually remove my hands from my ears to bring my attention back to him, and after a few sharp words the shield had dropped, and I was questioned profusely. At the time I had no idea how I'd done 

it, I was four, appearing as a near 7 year old, I hadn't been concerned on how I was doing what I was doing but on why I was doing what I was doing.

Never the less, Grams and dad worked with me until we had finally been able to draw the 'talent' out, it took a while, but we did it. I still can't control it completely, but I'm like 50 xs better at it. To be able to access it, whenever I want is a huge stepping stone.

My dad lifted an arm and I felt him slowly begin to play with a bit of my hair. I breathed deeply and sighed at his familiar scent, I could never give the sent a name, there was no name for it, it was just a memorable smell, one I had known and treasured for 6 years. I thought to myself again about school, how weird was it going to be, I couldn't even fathom it. A whole new down play had been created for my fellow school mates. A scenario that was repeated multiple times whenever we moved, only this was the first time I had ever been included in it. I was going to be playing the 'role' of my dad's 'little sister' we looked exactly alike, except for the extra breadth of my lips, eye color and gender; there, I had to admit even to my eye, was no way for us not to claim direct relation.

My dad was only seventeen, well, in reality he was a little over a hundred, as of last June. But in appearance he was seventeen, he could push it to…. maybe 19, but he wasn't getting a day over it. He was really built, yet not like Uncle Emmett. This being the only reason for his very slim chance of claiming nineteen years as he sometimes did. We had talked about the whole scenario, until the idea of my going to school was almost a repugnant one, it played out as such: Grams and Gremma were 'mom' and 'dad', and my dad, (who I had to start referring to as Edward; come some twenty hours) and I were their biological kids. Both my dad and I favored Grams a bit, so it would be believable. Mom, Uncle Emmett and Aunt Alice were siblings, adopted into our family at about 9 years back. And then Aunt Rosie and Uncle Jasper were kid's from a close friend of the family and lived with us throughout the school year due to their 'father's traveling' schedule. I thought it was all a little intricate, but was assured that the acting would be the complicated part.

Jacob wasn't going to school; he hadn't finished back in Forks, and he never really told me why, just said he took a road trip, and never got back to it. Though it would be a little funny for him now to go back to the 11th grade, He was 23, but looked a little older than that, one would guesstimate 26, 27: and like our family he didn't age, that is not until he wanted to, he hadn't changed a bit from what I can remember, he was young still, his demeanor showed that. He recently got his G.E.D. and had a job lined up as a mechanic starting on Thursday. Jacob liked cars, loved them would be a better term. I only liked them because he did. So he was working at something he loved, and what's better he had curved his schedule so that he went to work after I had left for school, and got off in time to meet me after, and the weekends were mine to.

"Nessie you want to play?" the question brought me out of my dreary contemplating, uncle Jasper was holding out a remote to me. I shook my head and then nuzzled deeper into my dad's neck. I felt my dad shift, and could feel him staring at me.

"Nessie, are you alright?" my dad's voice sounded concerned. I nodded and turned my head back so that I could see the room once again. I did feel tired and faintly annoyed for some reason I couldn't render. I nudged the opened magazine with my socked foot, sighed and then asked, "When's Jacob coming back?"

I heard my dad's familiar snarl and then my mom's short laugh, "You've asked that 7 times within 15 hours."

I heard the humor in my mother's voice and for some reason it caused my slight annoyance to detonate into full blown out irritation and I responded before I could stop myself, "Thanks for proving how helpful you're not and for once again failing to answer the question." My sarcastic tone was something I was even surprised at. I felt my dad shift and with little vigor cuff my hip where his hand had momentarily been resting. It didn't hurt, but it was enough to catch my attention. "Sorry" I mumbled with a glower, but something that shocked me further, was the fact that I wasn't, not really. I don't know why I got so angry or why I was still angry, my mother hadn't really said anything that should bother me; let alone anger me. I must look like a total 'crack pot' to the others, just 'starting in' like that.

With this thought in my head, I tried to bury my face deeper into my dad's shoulder. I was confused by my flare-up, but not surprised; I'd had others recently. I hadn't conversed to my parent's that I couldn't control them, and I had done a pretty good job of oppressing that knowledge so my dad hadn't been able to hear it. I knew it would be just a new set of pestering questions for me and concern for them. Besides, the tantrums weren't that common, I just needed to practice some de-stressing exercises. I breathed deeply and exhaled slowly. Again this wasn't the first time I had been unproductive in retaining my heated outbursts. The latest occurring only four days ago, I had an 'all-out' with my uncle Emmett; he'd made some joke… I can't even remember now, but it had me just so completely irritated that I responded with a; Gremma used the word 'colorful', vocabulary and in such a livid tone my mother couldn't believe the tongue was mine. I swore I had heard my uncles use the terms I had chosen fairly often and Jacob when he was aggravated and even dad used the words at one time or another, but my mom and Gremma weren't exactly impressed with my usage of them, boy was that a long hour! Uncle Emmett always joked around, frequently at the expense of others but there was no true harm in it; he really was like an annoying little brother, only older. I was more or less a quiet, calm individual, I don't like confrontation at all, and everyone knew it, so when I had retorted with such hostility it was astonishing to all the un-dead in the room.

The awkward silence was swift, as my Uncles taunting voice filled the room, "You callin' it quits Jazz, or you ready for another serving of 'faced!'" Emmett smiled smugly making a hand motion like a slash just a few inches from his own face, in an attempt to antagonize Jasper.

"You're such a dork." Jasper responded with no emotion. Literally the oldest in the house after Grams, but physically the same age as Emmett, Uncle Jazz was always 'cautious' he would chill back and kick it 

when it was just us, but in some ways he was a little snobby, or that is how he would appear to everyone that wasn't a Cullen. He was more serious than any of the others, yet was playful at the same time, a hard comprehension.

"This dork just cleaned your clock, and is open for an instant replay, if you can keep that tail from tuckin' long enough." Emmett shifted from side to side, smiling, again excitement in his physical structure at the probable triumph he would have in the following minutes.

"Just like you to gloat over a gift-wrapped win." Jasper said back curtly with a smug smile.

Emmett's mouth dropped, "Well then pick up the remote 'JZ', and we'll check if your 'game' can keep up with your mouth." Emmett finished in a goad, I could tell 'It was on!' by the look in Uncle Emmett's eyes. Uncle Jasper sighed and clicked a button, pushing himself to his feet, it appeared as though he was trying to get prepped, somehow the games my uncles played, especially when they played each other always seemed to require movement, preparation; it was quite funny.

"Don't get to into it fella's. Esme's back." My dad said, he reached down and picked up the magazine I had been toeing, his arm kept around me holding the magazine up and open, I twisted slightly to view the contents of the page. "I like that one" I stated pointing to an orange, sharp framed, two-seater.

"Smart girl, that's a Saleen s7." I could hear the smile in his voice. Dad, like Jacob was a huge kid when it came to cars. They were his toys. Dad would buy them at random; he'd just recently brought home a silver Porsche 911 gt, it was my favorite.

My mother like me wasn't really into cars but she appreciated the fact that my dad was, and she'd been awed like a human would have been at the unique differences and glitches so many of the cars at the house offered. Mom had fingered the silver Porsche in one of dad's calendars, declaring it as one she thought 'looked' impressive. The car ended up being my mothers, which she rarely ever drove. She had another car that dad got for her and claimed she was just now getting use to it.

The sound of the front door opening, had uncle Emmett shoving the game boxes into the cupboard below the big screen and kicking up the pillows to their proper place on the couch by the far wall. Uncle Jasper twisted and using his foot, shoved the coffee table with just enough force to send it sliding a few feet across the hard wood back into, almost, perfect position. Neither'd removed their eyes from the screen, nor their hands from the remotes.

My dad was telling me something about the new Saleen raptor, he showed me a picture of it, "It's really pretty, but I don't like the color." I admitted. Dad grinned and shook his head.

Gremma and Aunt Rosie walked in at that time. Gremma paused and looked to me and then glanced at the clock, almost 3:45, she looked to Emmett and Jasper, "Did you wake that child up?" she asked firmly, yet there was no sting to her voice.

"Wha…" Emmett started looking to her swiftly his brow pulling together.

Aunt Rosie swiftly walked to me, knelt and kissed the top of my head, most kids would find this demeaning, well teenagers anyhow, but if anyone in this house had more claim of me, over mom, dad and Jacob, it was aunt Rosie, kind of a cool situation, she was my 'back to' girl, if I wanted something, to do something or what not, and mom wasn't 'down' with it, all I had to do was ask aunt Rosie and it was practically done. The quick moment of affection passed as she made her way over to the tv. She stood with an appalling face, just staring at the screen.

"She's only been up for a bit.." my Mom stated.

"Morning Folks." The rich voice was thick with velvet; Gram's walked quickly in and past Gremma with a large box and a couple of small plastic bags. "Would one of you like to give me a hand with unloading?" he asked in more of an expectant tone.

My dad lifted me in one stride movement, startling me momentarily, while at the same time pulling himself to his feet. After he placed me on mine and quickly kissed the side of my head he answered while on his way out the door, "Calm down boy's, no need to be in such a hurry to help" my dad remarked sarcastically, glancing at Uncle Jasper and Emmett. Neither responded, both too focused on the game.


	4. The Thirst

Aunt Rose went and gracefully sat in the oversized arm chair that caddie-cornered the couch, and watched Emmet and Jasper continue their virtual duel.

"Ya'll were gone longer than usual. Carlisle made a trip?" my mother asked my aunt.

Rosalie shifted in the chair, to face Bella; she pulled her legs up so that her feet rested on the edge of the cushion, making her look quite small in the large chair. "Yeah, we were running low. The hospital just received their blood transfer's for the month, so he decided to run by work and pick up a few boxes. He figured they would be easier to get now rather than later, the boxes are pretty big," She said as she ran her hand, fingers sprawled through her long golden locks.

Made sense, if anyone saw him with the boxes, Grams could write it off as moving into his office, the boxes weren't marked, the packages inside them were however, so there would be no real way for anyone to tell what Gram's had.

"Whad' all you get?" Jasper asked, moving slightly with the remote in hand.

"Little of each. Allot of 'AB' negative, that was the overstock. "she said resting her head on her propped up fist.

"How bout the hunt?" Emmett asked, showing slight interest as he still focused on the game.

Rosalie sighed, "Not much to pick from, ended up with deer." Uncle Emmett groaned.

I took the few steps to the couch and sat by my mom. My shoulder and neck once again had a kink in it, I jolted my head to the side to try and swiftly 'pop' it out. Mom looked at me apprehensively, "Ness, are you sure your ok?" she asked.

"I'm fine mom." I responded in a dull tone. I was actually thirsty, my throat was dry and a little soar, from what I didn't know, but it felt all scratchy. Dad chose that time to emerge with two large boxes in hand, walking swiftly past us through the living room to the door on the other side of the room that led to the kitchen.

"I'm hungry." I said lowly, pulling at the loose fabric of my pajama bottoms. "What time are we going?" I looked to my mom.

"We'll leave here in a few hours." She said with a smile.

I sighed and then pushed myself up and headed towards the kitchen, I couldn't hold off that long, my stomach was feeling a little queasy from hunger. When I entered, I saw Gremma at the fridge, stacking blood bags in the freezer; dad slipped his index finger under the top of the taped package, and with a swift jerk of his finger across the box he had the tape sliced down the middle allowing the tops to rise from their restrained position. He began instantly unloading more bags from the box, handing them to Gremma. I went and sat at the bar, beside my dad. Without losing pace, or giving me a glance he had torn open a 'B+' and crossed the kitchen to get a silver cup, emptying the plastic bag into it and then set it down in front of me and resumed emptying the box.

I smiled, "Thanks", dad gave me a crooked grin as he handed Gremma a few more bags. I picked the cup up and took a gulp, trying to get as much down as I could to cut short the quenching hunger pains that were threatening to consume my torso. I pulled the cup back quickly and grimaced, setting it roughly on the counter.

Both dad and Gremma looked to me, "What's wrong with it?" my finger tips pressed at my mouth as I looked to my dad. He glanced from me to the cup and then back at me again.

"No it's not, it's fresh." He said as he picked up the cup. Obviously he had heard my last thought, which was that the blood had to be old, spoiled, contaminated, something.

"What's wrong?" Gremma asked, she stepped up right behind me. My face was still contorted, from the sour taste of the blood. It was horrid, it made my tongue and teeth tingle. Dad took a sip from it, and paused as though he were trying to savor the taste. "Nessie, there's nothing wrong with it. It's just cold." He said looking at me obscurely.

"Yes there is. It taste's polluted." I replied, my hand hovering over my mouth.

"It shouldn't. This load just arrived this morning."Gremma said taking the cup dad had set back on the counter. She took a sip, and then looked at dad. "It would be better warm, but I can't taste anything." She said glancing at me almost apologetically, like she was sorry she couldn't confirm my statement.

What was wrong with them, it tasted horrible. There was no way I was going to drink that, I looked at my dad with eyes that apparently stated that fact.

"Go get dressed, we'll head out early." He said, grabbing the empty box off the counter, and tossing it to the corner where the trash can was.

I sighed, my stomach was still queasy with the hunger pains, I had like a gulp of the rotten sludge, and it had done nothing to even ease the pains. I pushed myself up from the chair and looked to my dad, "Can we go now?" I asked lightly.

"When your dressed, let me tell your mom." He said walking past me and out of the kitchen.

I turned to see Gremma, peeling a banana. She smiled and then handed it to me. I smiled back to her, Out of all the human food in the world, banana's were my favorite, and I had had a variety, everything from Scandinavian to Persian, an experiment on finding what my 'taste's' were, and all though I preferred blood any day of the week over 'common' food, more than any other provisions I favored bananas. I smiled back at my Gremma and took the fruit from her. She wrapped her arm around my shoulders and kissed my forehead, "That will hold you for a little while, if you dress fast, and I'll have Carlisle inspect the latest batch." Again her angelic smile drew another from my mouth.

"Thanks Gremma." I took a bite of my banana and then quickly made my way out the other door that led through the laundry room and into the side bon foyer; I quickly trudged up the smaller less festooned stairs (Well compared to the front stairs anyway). By the time I was passing Rosalie and 

Emmett's room I had devoured my whole banana. I paused at the bathroom to toss the peel into the garbage bin. I also took that time to brush my teeth, there was a dull ache in my gum's. I must have been clenching them in my sleep again, I had a tendency to do that when I had, well,… I wouldn't say nightmares, but daunting dreams. I had been having 'them' recently that was more than likely the reason my mouth felt soar. I spit the remaining foam from my mouth and then rinsed. I wiped my mouth with the towel on the counter and then stood to check my appearance again.

With a sigh I turned and left out of the bathroom, walking quickly to my room, I pulled open my closet doors and walked into the massive mouth of what should be a small heaven in Alice's eyes. I pulled out a white tank top and a long sleeved yellow light pull over, and then a pair of dark blue jeans from the dresser, right by the entrance.

I made haste to quickly change, as I pulled my pull over on, Aunt Alice walked into the room, still all smiles, and threw herself on my bed. I pulled the scrunchie from my hair and shook it out, most of the curl had dropped from my hair, it was quite wavy, but not the curly mass it had been a few years back. Though that is normally what happened with curly hair when it was weighed down, my hair was very thick and much longer than mosts. I walked to my vanity and picked up my brush and black pronged head band, and then I took the items over to my bed.

Aunt Alice sat upright and displayed a bright grin, knowing exactly what I wanted.

"Turn around" she said sweetly, it was as though honey dripped from her words, she was so giddy. I obediently turned and sat Indian style in front of her. Her hands pulled all of my hair back behind my ears, I loved for people to play with my hair; it had a very calming effect on me. Not that I ever got to a state where I needed calming but the action would have me asleep in moments when I was smaller, I felt the brush replace her fingers, it was like all the dreary-ness returned to me at that one instant, my eye's even closed, the only thing that kept me from falling asleep was the twisting hunger pain in my stomach, but even it seemed dulled, blunted by the need for sleep.

I rubbed at my eyes, and focused on the painting that hung right above my mirror in an attempt to keep from falling asleep.

"So, are you excited about tomorrow Nessie?" my aunt asked sweetly.

I shrugged, "I guess." I was still a little weirded out about the whole identification thing.

"You'll like it. I thought you wanted to go, it'll be so much fun." She said while battling a knot at the bottom of my hair.

"I know, but what if I mess up, and like, call dad, 'dad' or mom 'mom'?" I said in a bit or a rush.

"We can write it off as you being tired. That's not going to have a volatile effect on us, people will think you're just a little off." She said with a giggle.

"I still think it's weird." I said pulling at my sock.

"Do you not want to go?" she asked, her voice was still 'merry' but the giggle was gone.

"No, I want to go." I sighed "I just, don't want to mess up." I said honestly. It sounded so stupid, like the littlest thing, most trivial when spoken, But in my mind it was huge, we were constantly moving because of me, up and outing it for my benefit, now that we had a chance to 'keep' for a while I wanted that, and if because of my in-experience at school, something I said, something I did, whatever, was the cause for us having to pull up roots again, well, it would just be bad, that's the only way I knew how to put it.

"You'll do fine Nessie. I've seen it." She said halting her brushing and resting her chin on my shoulder. I could tell by the tone of her voice she was smiling.

"Really?" I asked. "M-hmm." The sweet affirmation sounded in my ear. "Thanks Alice."

She sat back straight up, and reached around to my line of vision where I could see that she was placing my head band in place, "And you know if there's ever stuff you want to talk about, you know school stuff you don't want to talk to your mom or dad about I'll be here to listen." She said in a tone that wasn't really a statement tone but almost an expectant tone. It made me feel a bit awkward, like there was anything that I could keep private from my dad, well, I guess there was, I was getting on pretty good with my mom's little inherited talent. But I had a feeling that my aunt was sliding in an underlining meaning in her choice of words, like I was hiding something or at least would be in the near future. I looked slightly to my aunt and said, "Ok" with a smile that, by the look on her face she could tell was a discomfited one.

I didn't know why I was feeling anxious, I hadn't done anything, I just felt odd, that's why I was glad when my uncle walked through the door. Alice looked up to Jasper and gave another one of her bright smiles. His eyes shifted to me and a wary smile rode his features. "Everything alright?" whether he was checking to make sure he hadn't interrupted some private conversation (as if there were anything of the sort around this group) or had read my 'mood', acknowledged my anxiety and came to dull it, I was unsure.

"Everything's fine Jazz, we were just having small girl talk. Care to join us?" she asked with a sarcastic tone, but her smile remained.

"Not this time, Edward's about to head out with Ness and Bella for a hunt. I thought you might be up for a ride." Jasper said he'd actually dressed to go out, in his brown leather jacket and Dorvon' boots, he looked quite nice.

"That's a nice way of putting it." Came a slight shout followed up with a short laugh. I watched my Uncle Emmett halt at my door. "You should do it Alice, I completely just wiped the floor up with him, it'll restore a bit of his ego. It'll be a descent 'Score' at least." Emmett added with another small laugh.

Uncle Emmett ducked out just in time to miss the half hearted swing-back Jasper tossed in his direction.

"Eauww" I groaned as I fell face forward on my bed, it really did gross me out when Emmett talked about sex, preferably that of my parents but in general with any close relation was just as 'blah'.

"What?!" came the defensive tone from him a split second later. I looked up and saw my mother scowling at him and lowering her arm, as though she had struck him, though the way her hand was twisted I opted for the correct assumption she had thumped him. "Don't talk like that around her." She said gesturing to me. Uncle Emmett only smiled and rolled his eyes.

My mom turned her gaze on me and said, "You ready to go?" I nodded, and shifted myself off the bed, and made my way over to my closet.

"I am actually up for a ride, will be riding by the mall?" she asked with another grin, pushing herself up onto her knees.

"If that's what your up for." He said twirling the key's around his index finger. Her smile grew wider, her eyes turned up to the ceiling as though she were thinking, "Hmm.." she said with a slight smile, she brought her index finger to her mouth to add to the appearance she was obviously trying to give.

"What?" Jasper asked with slight but no physical amusement.

"I'm trying to think of what you can buy me?" she squinted her eyes slightly to add to the display, Jasper gave a n exasperated sigh, and rapidly made it over to the bed, bending and wrapping an arm around Alice's waist , with a fast jerk that would have jolted any regular persons head out of place, but had Alice giggling as she hung limply over Jasper's right shoulder. Jasper had a smirk on his face when he turned, "We'll catch you guy's later." He said walking out the door. Both Emmett and my mom were smiling after them. Down the hall we heard Alice's song of a laugh stop abruptly, and she spoke quickly, "I have to change first!". "Of course" was the annoyed response that followed.

My mom gave a slight laugh and focused again on me, I was finishing tying my sneaker, I stood and shifted my foot in the tight shoe, trying to make it more comfortable. "I think I need new sneakers." I told my mother with a fast crinkle of my nose.

"First thing tomorrow" she said with a nod.

"Rose and me are headed out too. She heard some kid at the hospital ' talkin' bout a rave 45 minutes out, we'll be back by 9. You know how Esme is bout those things so if we're gone when she asks, we wont catch it." He said with a grin to my mom, but his hand shot out towards me and flicked my long hair up over my face before he turned and rushed out of the room.

I jerked my hair back into place and glared at where Emmett had been standing, to find he was gone. I was angry again, very much so actually. My teeth were grit, my brow furrowed and I was breathing a little hard, "Nessie, hey…" my mom said as she took a step towards me and placed her hand on my shoulder, I jerked away from her, and turned to look at her. "Hey" she said firmly, taking hold of both my shoulders, something in my head clicked.

My mother never sounded like that, well only if she was really, really, REALLY mad, I could only recall a couple times and that was a good while back, when we had the whole ordeal with the "royals" wanting to off me. I stared at her a moment longer before closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.

I slowly opened my eyes and looked at her, "I'm sorry" I said now feeling really bad. My mother could have been n shock though her volume didn't convey that. "It's only Emmett, Nessie." She said, her eyes still confused and searching.

I couldn't look right into her eyes, I felt too ashamed I guess it was. So I looked around, trying to think of what to say. "I know. I'm just…" I really had no idea what to say, I was trying to find something to tell her, tell myself even, to say I was just sporadically angry would not be an adequate excuse not to mention I for some reason would feel like I was lying.

My mom took my chin gently and made me look at her. "Baby, what's wrong?" she asked. I didn't know what to say, still clueless of an answer that would be accepted and yet not a lie. "I Just…I don't…..I don't feel good and, I'm hungry, and he's just aggravating me." I said with a slight nod forcing my mom to remove her hand.

"Downstairs you said you felt fine." My mom said her eyes turning down, now they read 'worried'. "I know, I think it's cause I'm hungry, mm, thirsty." The pause was only a few moments before I couldn't stand it anymore, "I really am sorry." My mom nodded and then spoke, "You want Carlisle to check you out?" that had me speaking fast, that was an appalling notion to me, "No!" I said a little offensively. "Ok, alright, I'm just asking." My mom said gently, knowing by my tone it would start into an argument.

I sighed and rubbed my forehead almost in agitation.

"Alright" my mother started, she ran her hand down the side of my head, smoothing my hair, and tucking the length behind my left ear. I looked back at her, and she gave me a sweet smile, it made me relax. "No more questions. I know how it irked me when Charlie was real inquisitive. But if you start to feel worse, I trust you'll tell me." My mom was really laid back on most counts, very intelligent and un-like my dad very exceptive of things without having to have full blown details, or hounding you for information. Really, it was as rare as a blue moon; he could get the answers he wanted from anyone with little or no effort. I was the omission since I had harnessed the portion of my mothers gift as of lately and used it to be a shield, again applied concentration was required, but it was becoming more of an automated permanent block, like a setting in a computer, or something.

I smiled slightly and stepped close to my mom, wrapping my arms around her waist and laying my head on her shoulder, she followed in suit immediately, she was only a few inches taller than me, but she was broader so I was small in comparison still, I liked it like that, "I love you mom." I said lightly. My mom gave a short huff, and I could feel her jaw pull as she smiled, "Oh, I love you Nessie. So much." She said squeezing me a little tighter.

I felt her pull back slowly; I looked up to her and paused as she kissed my forehead. I smiled at her.

"Well here are my lovely ladies" both my mother and I had turned to notice my dad propping himself up in the doorway, arms raised and leaning on either side of the door frame.

"Are we ready to go?" he asked lightly with a crooked grin. My mother smiled and stepped back from me.

"Yes!" I said a little to enthusiastically, it was only now that I realized once more the pains in my stomach again. I was starving, in every since of the word. My dad's smile broadened as he pushed himself to stand upright and walked through my door and over to my closet. When he entered he paused only a few seconds scanning the upper rack of items, before pulling down a light, white jacket, he tossed it to me, and my in-human reflexes took play in the rapid catch I managed.

It was only then that I noticed my mom too was in a blue-jean jacket, as my dad was in his leather one, yes it was cold out, but we were hunting, we didn't really need them.

"Always caution, Nessie. Appearance is just as important as the act." my dad said, he'd slid his hands in his jacket pockets.

I nodded as I pulled the jacket on. "Ok, can we go, I'm so hungry I think I might pass out." I said sarcastically and also amusingly for only I knew how real that threat was.

"Lead the way" my dad motioned to the door, I turned swiftly and was out the door in a split second, the cramps in my stomach were strengthening, I walked swiftly down the hall, but my parents didn't fall behind in the least. Downing the steps swiftly, there was no pause as I reached the door, pulled it open and took out into the dark morning.


	5. Feeding

The woods were dark and damp, as they so often were when we made similar trips like this. They were also serenely quiet, for all but our in synch foot steps as we ran at full speed through the woods, my parents and I in complete synch of one another. Our strides matched leap for leap, sprinting and landing at the same time.

But yet we were as quiet as the wind through the tree's, a natural occurrence that was sorely for the benefit of not alerting or scaring off our prey. Well that's how Uncl…gah, ' I had to stop that',Emmett, Emmett had explained it.

"There, just ahead." My dad said as we took off into another leap. I hadn't sensed the live stock a little ways ahead, normally I was quite good at picking out live game when we hunted, though I was more or less focusing on my stomach and how hungry I was, the pains were starting to tread the line of unbearable. After a final leap all three of us came to an abrupt halt, I rose from the crouch I had landed in. I let out an unsteady breath, my dad looked over at me and then said, "I'll bring them in, you two wait here." And with that took off into the night at a quick stride that was yet still a walk.

My mom took a seat at the base of a huge Oak tree, and smiled at me. I walked over to the large tree and took a seat beside her; my dad was a lot faster than the both of us when it came to hunting. But in all truthfulness my dad had some odd 80 years of practice that my mom and I did not.

My mother began to play with my hair, again an action that would have me asleep in a matter of moments when I was a child and even so now. I shifted to lay my head on my mom's shoulder, this giving her access only to the ends of my hair which she pulled gently through her fingers before allowing the bronzed locks to fall. I was positive she had picked up this action from my dad, I would very often see him mindlessly playing with her hair, and when I was younger and even to this day, he plays with my hair just as such, much more than my mother did. That thought had me sitting up, I needed to get into the habit of behaving as though my mom was my sister, and dad my brother, that meant curbing some things.

"Bella," I tried with a wince. It just didn't sound right, and it was way awkward, and it didn't really help that my mother flinched as though she had been startled or something. "Wow, that's weird." I said with a slight cringe.

"Quite" my mom said easily, "But it can't be helped. Did you want to ask me something?" she asked lightly. "Well, I was just going to ask and see when the next time we would be, …that we could go and see Charlie? It's been a long time, I miss him and I also miss the pack." I said lightly.

"Nessie, you just saw Seth and Embry not two months ago, and Charlie at Christmas." She said pointedly with amusement in her voice.

"But that's not the whole pack, and doesn't a girl have the right to see her grandfather without warranting a holiday occasion." I asked in return amusement. My mother smiled at me and gave a short laugh, "I'll talk to your dad. We'll see what he says." She said rubbing my cheek gently.

I drew my knees up to my chest and rested my arms on them, laying my head down I turned to her, I was trying to curl myself in on the cramps I was feeling, thinking that I could position myself into a pose that would dull the throbbing, and trying to keep my mind off of it, just until my dad got back with dinner. "Do you think we'll ever move back to Forks?" I asked lightly.

My mom gave a small sigh and then said, "Of course we will someday. It will always be there waiting for us. We just have to give it a little time, you know the drill." She said again allowing the smile to return to her face. I huffed and then jerked my head to the side when I heard my dad's return , he pushed through the brush, he held two large deer by the antlers, one tucked awkwardly under his right arm and another tossed over his left shoulder.

He dropped them a few feet in front of us, they were huge. I liked it when dad would go on the hunt, he always brought back huge portions, mom and I could never manage to get 'game' that could compare in size at least, to my dad's when we would lone hunt. Kind of made me think he had a 'secret stash' of them somewhere, lol.

"I've got another one pulled down back there. You two go ahead and start. I'll be right back" he said smiling and then turned on his heel before my mom could suggest we go back with him, which I would have refused to do so, I was that hungry and I didn't have to wait to be told twice. I was on my knees at the deer's front, lifting his light weight, I held his thick antler stem in one hand and in the other had a handful of the loose skin at his front chestal area. With practiced skill, I used my teeth to puncture the furry hollow of the beast's thick neck. The course fur, scratched lightly at my face. The beast smelled much like the forest we were in, it wasn't a bad smell, but you wouldn't capture the scent in a bottle and throw a price on it either, but ah, the scent of the blood had me lightheaded. I wasn't sure if it was because of how hungry I was and the satisfying was just that intense or because it had been a while since I had drank straight from a source. Drinking from a 'source' was always better than the 'baggies' we had back at home, but it was what I had lasted on for the last two weeks. The blood spilled into my mouth in a fierce flow, I greedily sucked in all that I could; doing my best to let as little as possible of the mouth watering fluid spill to the ground.

My mom was now feasting on her own beast; she was a little more graceful at her drawing of the beast's blood than I had been. Then again she wasn't as starved as I was. As the hot blood raced down my throat and through my system, I felt as though I was being rejuvenated, my teeth were still soar but I only noticed it when I shifted to better clasp my mouth around the wound I had masterfully created. For the first four years of my life, my parents had 'wounded' the beast for me and all I had to do was drink of it. Not to long after, my dad had instructed me how to go about puncturing the animal and where to look for the central points of blood flow on the beasts. My dad would normally though, stand me between his crouched legs, hold the beast he had wrestled down for me positioned, and allow me to drink my fill. It was only these last couple years with might protest on my part; that I took to tending to my own kill, which also I had just started doing within the past two years. Of course within the last two years I had ranged from the physique of nine to now thirteen. Up until then; Dad, mom and Jacob had always got my 'kill'. But rarely now, I enjoyed the hunt as much as I enjoyed the spoils, I loved it because I was sharpening my skills with every hunt I succeeded on my own in, and every hunt normally included Jacob, when it was just me an him, it was so much fun, he made it fun. I pulled back and sat on my haunches, and gave a deep sigh, I missed him so much.

My mom paused herself and pulled up to look at me, "Nessie?" she asked.

My eyes pulled from her to see my dad push once again through the brush, he had another deer, a little smaller than mine over his shoulder, he paused looking at me and arched an eyebrow, " He'll be back very soon, Renesmee. I'd say even before lunch. Just chill out and drink." My dad gestured to the animal in front of me. He dropped his kill next to my mothers and went about positioning the animal to a comfortable hold, while he drank.

"Really? Will he be back in time to go register with us?" I asked quickly.

"I can't be certain but I'm pretty sure" my dad said with a sly smile and a roll of his eyes.

I was excited now, Jake had said it was a possibility he might make it back two days before scheduled, but I had kind of doubted it. Plus he never really got to see his dad, I felt bad for seeking him so much when he never got to see his blood family. I sometimes felt I asked to much of him, like his presence all the time. And he was an uncle now, Paul and Rachel ended up having a shot gun wedding. They were actually planning to get married and had a date set for the following summer, but when Rachel learned that she was a mother to be, the wedding stepped up 13 months, and now there was a new kid to the clan, Billy Christopher, named after Jacobs dad, in an attempt Rosalie was sure to ease the shock of Jacobs dad to the news of a young pup running around so soon after the marriage.

Jacob never complained about his stretch from his family in La Push to his family here. He always argued with me on that, said he was only a tolerant here, that me and my mom were the only tie's that kept him here. He didn't really hang out a lot with my family, like he didn't have a problem so much with Jasper and Alice, never messed with them. He and Uncle Emmett were cool together, they hung out more than any of the others, though he and Rosalie; there was no way they could be trusted left alone together. Their spats were always fun to listen to, for the whole family, but that was when the sharp tongued fiends were supervised. Grams and Gremma loved him, and he was really fond of them. He liked Gremma a lot, he was way young when his mom died and so never really experienced the benefits of a mother, and Gremma babied everyone, I think he likes it even though he always acts a little well, bashful towards her kindness. They both treat him like he is one of their own, which I like a lot.

I returned my attention back to my feast below me. I had to shift the deer a few times to better drain it, my hunger pains were completely gone, but I wasn't full. My mother had completely drained hers and had since stood, lifted the beast and went to dispose of it somewhere in the woods. I sat back on my haunches and looked after her, I was still a little thirsty but it was bearable. My dad followed suit in an easy glide pushing himself up he moved to my side and lifted my deer.

"I can do it." I said earnestly to him, moving to get up.

"No, you finish up on that one." He said with a jerk of his head to his kill. His lips were stained a dark red as mine were I was sure, his fell into a smirk "your still hungry" he stated after apparently reading my mind. He then lifted the deer up with ease and then made his way towards the woods, in the same direction my mother had gone.

"But that's yours." I bluntly stated, he hadn't drained the whole thing which was obvious as the animal still had more of it's bulk as compared to mine and my mothers that had been all but bone dry and appeared smaller.

He turned quickly with arched brows, "Just mind me." He said and then continued into the woods.

I rolled my eyes but took that time to get up and walk over to my dad's 'breakfast'. The wound was as always perfect and there was only slight staining on the fur around the wound from where my father had been sucking momentarily. I didn't want him to have to go catch another for himself, I felt like a total heifer. I thought about leaving it for him and then had another thought, what if he was going to 'entertain' my mother. Oh, the revulsion of that thought was so thick I shuddered. Perhaps that's why he was persistent about me staying and drinking, more than 'preferably wishing' for me to take my time. They both did eat rather fast, a little to fast, I thought to myself suspiciously.


	6. An Encounter

I pushed myself up, grabbed the antler of the deer and drug it the few feet to the large oak my mother had been leaning against. I sat where she had propped herself against the tree and pulled the deer in close between my legs. I heard a soft snap from my right; reflexively I'd turned to see what had made the noise, but there was nothing there and it had become eerily quiet. This was ridiculous, was freaking myself out, I closed my eyes slowly, took a breath and then peered back out to the considered area; I still didn't see anything and concluded that since my vision was of the best one could ever dream of having, whatever had made the noise was gone now, leading me to believe it was an animal. Also I feared listening to intently, frightened I might hear my mom and dad, which I was positive by now, were 'shagging' somewhere against a tree, 'ooh, I really hope dad didn't catch that' hopefully his concentration was otherwise…invoked on something else, I thought to myself. I took to drinking leisurely from my dad's kill.

I gulped the large mouthful of blood I'd all but inhaled from the animal and leaned my head back; and then came another distinct snap of some branches. I instantly turned my sight once again on the area I was positive the noise had come from. It was so quiet it was like there was an echo to the small snaps of the crushing branches, and I could have sworn I heard a light curse. I pushed the deer off of me and stood slowly, an attempt to not scare off whatever was over there out of sight. My eyes darted swiftly around trying to see the source of the noise. There was no sound at all now, not my slow approaching footsteps, not the snapping limbs from a close distance, not even the slight chirping of the insects of the forest. It was a little freaky.

I cautiously started into the woods, glancing frequently around me and moving slowly as to make as minimal noise as possible. It was so quiet around me that my light breathing sounded as though it were magnified in tone, so I held it and every minute or so I'd let it out only to hold it again. There were large roots that rose partially from the earth that scattered the in-existent path I was trying to take around the large rocks that protruded slightly out of the earth, forcing me to leap over them; as I landed gracefully on my feet, I sucked in a breath, fearful that I had disturbed whatever it was I was trying to locate. I stood perfectly still and listened, nothing. I turned and looked back the way I had come, I knew I had traveled a good distance into the woods but hadn't realized exactly how far I'd come, a mile maybe? I'd noticed the forest had lightened, I looked up; the sky was giving off little light, just enough for the darkened earth to appear a light gray, it was what 5, 6 in the morning by now? So it was no problem for me to see the mini rocked mountain just a half a mile ahead or so.

I cocked my head to the side, and headed for the mountain. As I approached the front of the large rocked face mount, I saw that it wasn't a mountain at all, simply an enormous rock. Looked about 14 or 15 feet high and was jagged and sharp. The white and black coloring of the stone meshed together where some thick patches of green moss resided, making the hard stone quite soft in rare places. It was the crunch of dead leaves that startled me back to the cautiousness that I had momentarily forgotten, and intuitively I jumped back. When again nothing was present I sighed to myself, 'don't be a baby, Nessie' I thought to myself. I was quickly aggravated that I had been frightened and now positive that something or someone was making the noise and worse more; watching me, and whoever or whatever it was could see my agitation. No satisfaction to them would be given on my part! I squared my shoulders, huffed and then stomped around to the other side of the rock where the noise had definitely come from.

I shifted to put all my weight on my left side, a hand on my hip. My left hand had drug smoothly across the large rock as I marched around it, I now rested against one of the sharp ridges. I knew I had heard something, my hearing was dead on, I couldn't of been imagining it….could I? No, I had heard the crunch of the leaves, the footsteps, the light curse, there was no way I was mistaken, something was out there and evading me.

I closed my eyes and listened, when I focused on listening it was fairly easy to pick up almost every sound within a mile's limit, I could now hear the 'skeets' of mice in the forest, the low hoots from owls that were just settling back in, the slight whistle of the damp wind and…eauw!' I shook my head roughly and tried to rid my mind of the sounds, my parents had to learn to control themselves. Their behavior was just….just…juvenile! I gave another searching glance to the surroundings before me; it was obvious that the 'thing' wasn't going to reveal itself. With a sigh I turned quickly to head back, but the moment I did I let out a startled scream and through myself back, hard, against the rock. I winced slightly but my eyes quickly fell back to shock, as they focused on the creature before me.

A boy, a blonde boy, his hair was a shaggy white blond, almost with a glow to it, and his eyes, they were a fierce fire-licking gold, exactly like my dad's. Like all of my family's. He was just slightly taller than I, and he was staring me straight in the eyes, his face expressionless. I had my back pressed up against the rock, my hands out and pressed against the mini mountain also. He stepped up to me slowly, his gaze still on me as though I was an exotic animal or something. He wasn't human, that much I knew, by both sight and scent and I was fairly confident that he was like me in the aspect that wasn't human that is.

He stepped even closer to me, and I wasn't sure why, but I was frightened of him, I had been told time and time again that vampires were dangerous, aside from my family that is. There were a few other clans I knew of, but they were practically family what with how often they visited, or used to anyway. We were different from others of our kind. And young ones were the worst, according to Jasper that is, and after the confrontation with the Volturi not to long back, I believed him.

The boy reached out towards me slowly and took a strand of my hair, lifting it to hold it just a few inches from his face, his eyes squinted and his brows pulled together as he studied my extensive lock. I was a little bewildered by this act. For a moment I thought he could have possibly been mental, oh wouldn't that be my luck, the first vampire I meet aside from my family would be a mental one wouldn't it? I thought to myself. I had never heard of a mental vampire, not even sure there could be such a thing. When one became a vampire, according to Grams all imperfections were well …perfected, did that include mental stability as well? 'Ok, new question for Grams' I thought again to myself while keeping my eyes on the boy before me.

His face was contorted into one of unreachable comprehension, my breathing quickened slightly as his gaze found mine again, he stepped even closer to me, almost up against me, nearly wedging me between him and the rock I stood against. I didn't know what to say to him, 'back off', ' scuse me, ever heard of personal space' or if I should just hit him and run, ok that was a stupid idea, I had my fair share of inherited strength, but was nothing compared to a full vamped being. This was just common sense on my part and obvious knowledge from living with my purebred vampiric family. I was all but hyperventilating when he placed a familiar cold palm to my left cheek; he ran his fingers warily over my skin before cupping my face. His gaze left mine to look at his hands at their place on my face, I had once seen a movie called 'Tarzan', involving an ape man coming into contact with a human woman for the first time. This boy's actions were very similar to his, like he had never seen anything like me before and he was touching me to 'learn' me I guess. Though by his clothes and well kept appearance the chance of him being 'wild' was out of the question.

"Renesmee!" my mothers shrill, bell-like voice rang out and it was only then I noticed the noise in the near distance. I hadn't even heard them coming, the boy let go of me, and gave a startled glance to the direction of which my mother's voice and now my father's was coming. Within the following split second he gave me a final glance and then with speed faster than that of even my dad's, took off into a run and then bounded up into a tree and I could hear him make his 'escape' I guess it would be. "Renesmee!" my dad's voice was more frantic, and I could now hear them running, towards me thankfully.

I was too shocked to move just yet, my heart that already beat with an unnaturally rapid pulse was now at a tempo that would be considered far past heart attack prone. I opened my mouth to call to my parent's but all I could get out was "here.." in what was no more louder than a casual conversational tone. But it was within that split second my dad leapt in front of me. He'd jumped off the rock that I still pressed against, and pulled me roughly up into a hug. I winced slightly as I felt a slight ache in my shoulder where I'd hit it in my attempt to keep myself from being hurt…ironic, no? My mother wasn't two seconds behind him, and she all but snatched me from my dad and hugged me rather coarsely herself. I watched my dad as he had obviously picked up the scent of the boy and was trying to see which way he had gone.

"I'm ok." I said giving my mom a light squeeze, she pulled back and looked at me, keeping her hands on my waist, "Renesmee, what happened?" my mom was still a little panicky, I could tell by her breathing. Vampires don't have to breathe, but my family has trained themselves so sufficiently to fit in with humans that sometimes I deem they fail to remember that they are still using human tendencies, even when they are not needed.

"There was a boy, and I think he was" I thought about it for a moment, "well, like us, er-uh like you .A vampire. He acted really strange though." My mom cut me off there, "Did he hurt you?" she asked pushing me away from her slightly and turning me around to inspect the damage she was sure he had done.

"No, I'm fine. He didn't hurt me he just.." I didn't know how to explain what he was doing 'studied me' "touched me, that's all." I said earnestly, I wanted them both to calm down; but especially my mom, when she was panicky I got panicky.

My dad whirled around then and grabbed my arm, "Touched you, what do you mean he just touched you, touched you where, touched you how?" he demanded quickly. There were times, in my life, I believed my dad was the scariest thing in the whole world. One of those times was right now, his eyes were that of a man preparing for a massacre, one that he was going to cause. Obviously I had done a very poor job in my attempt to calm them.

I lifted my right hand to his cheek, and spoke to him in my favored way, I showed him exactly what had played out between the boy and I, and just when I got to the part of hearing mom's yelling for me, he loosened his grip on my arm, and we both watched as the boy fled and it ended when my dad saw himself jump right in front of me, my dad let out a sigh. I rubbed my thumb gently over his cheek where my hand was still in place and then lowered it. "That's all" I said timidly.

His eyes were still hard and the butter-scotch gold bored into me. He let out an unneeded breath and then covered my hand on his cheek with his own. He sighed again and pulled me back into him, wrapping his arms around me once more, I could feel him kiss the top of my head and pause there for a few moments before he finally stood straight and said "Ok, let's just uh, let's just head back."

I turned and slowly trudged past my mom, I heard my dad make his way after me and when I glanced behind me it was to find him, placing an arm over my mom's shoulders and walking her after me. As we made our way slowly, for I suppose the mood was still all but giddy, back through the woods to the house. I didn't make any remark about my dad's scuffled shirt or my mother's dis-shelved hair, I feared the atmosphere wasn't light enough to jest about the last fifteen minutes or so just yet.


	7. Timely Trip

By the time we made it back to the house it was nearly 7. The house was empty of all but Gremma and Grams, and after taking the first few strides into the living room from the backdoor it was instantly regretted. Gremma and Grams were taking full advantage of the empty house and non-to quietly either, I turned my wide eyes to my mom and dad, my mom was obviously as mortified as I was and could only open and shut her mouth, my dad too was obviously discomfited and with a slight grin said, "Why don't we take that trip in town now?" he asked.

I pushed past him and ran outside. They weren't two steps behind me when I turned and looked to them, "That is so gross, I'm never gonna get that out of my head." My face I could feel was unnaturally twisted into a form of disgust. My mom laughed and my dad smiled as he walked past me heading for the garage, on the other side of the house.

"I'm sure you'll be able to blur it out soon enough." My mom stated with a short chuckle. I couldn't help the glare I gave her, I knew she would be blushing worse than me if she were able, and it annoyed me that I was the only one subject to the obvious embarrassment on my face.

"Why can't anyone around here restrain themselves?" I demanded and quickly started after my dad, he was already climbing into the Volvo, I ran the rest of the way to the car and crawled into the backseat. I shut the door and then rest my elbow of the car's window sill, my nose crinkled one last time as I tried to think of anything to override the last sounds that ran through my mind and the involuntary image they brought up.

"So, where's our first stop?" dad asked as my mom climbed into the car and shut the door. I knew he could hear my thoughts and was now trying to get me off the topic. He was looking to me in the rearview mirror; I smiled at him and sighed. "Are any of the stores even open now?" I asked looking to clock on the dashboard and then to my mom.

She looked to dad and then ahead of her as he pulled out of the drive and started down the road, "The mall is probably not open this early but I'm sure there's a few places open."

"Should we call Rosalie and tell her we're already heading out?" I asked.

"We'll give her a call about nine, mall opens at ten. That'll give her plenty of time to meet up with us." Mom said.

I pushed myself up to lean forward in-between the two front seats, "what time are we supposed to go register?" I asked gently.

"Right after lunch, so about one I would say." My dad stated. That meant; assuming my dad was right which in all reality there was no assuming about it, he was ALWAYS right, Jacob would be back within the next five hours.

I smiled and rested my chin in my hand, "This place is totally dead in the mornings" I said tiredly glancing out my mom's window.

My mom turned to me and smiled, but her smile dropped just as quickly when she looked to my dad, who cleared his throat and maneuvered his foot to the brake pedal, I felt the car easily slow, and I turned just in time to see the speedometer fall from 97 mph to a safe 80mph. Mom was weird about dad's driving, I had no idea why , dad had never been caught speeding and had never even received a parking ticket, yet mom was all about the 'rules of the road' yes I am sure a lot of her nagging had to do with the fact that my granddad was a sheriff and all but sometimes she could be a real kill joy.

"Found your book store" he said to my mother, amusement in his voice. Mom quickly turned to look out the window, "The Book Nook" huh, can we swing down there to see the time's their open?" she asked looking at dad.

He only smirked at her and hit his blinker to cross the highway to the exit needed to get down to the large shopping center. The parking lot's were bare give or take the eight or nine random cars that always dwell through the night in all parking areas.

When dad hit the lot he drove slowly and was a couple stores down, "Their open" my mom said with slight amusement. "6 am to 10 pm." She smiled.

"Well, at any rate, now I'll know where to find you, should you go missing." My dad said with another smirk. He swung the car into a parking spot and within the same second he was on the other side of my mother's door opening both her and my door.

My mom climbed out and smiled at him, then side stepped so that he could shut the door, my attention was completely drawn to the huge fashion store that was built in next to the book store, it was enormous, "Fay's Fashion: modes exquises de Paris" was what the large black cursive letters spelled, for normal eyes it could have been a little difficult to read due to the font.

"Well what do you think?" dad asked as he shut my door, and put his arm around my shoulders.

I gave him a sarcastic look, as though he didn't know what I was thinking, but the look he returned me read clearly that he was in full retreat mode of my thinking, allowing me my privacy. I smiled at him then and said, "I think Alice would have a field day here." He smiled and gave a short laugh.

"It's French; it appears Carlisle is going to have to allow Alice a larger car for this shopping trip." He said with another laugh. I smiled at him and we began walking towards the book store, he held my moms hand but kept his arm around my shoulder.

When we reached the door to the bookstore mom pulled it open though dad held it while she and I entered the store first. This place was also huge, it didn't appear so from the outside but from the inside it could almost give a match to the fashion store next to it. There were no customers of course, but their were two blonde girls up at the front counter, one was wearing glasses and had her nose buried in a book, the other was sitting on the counter flipping through a magazine.

My dad smiled at me and then steered me towards where my mom had headed. When we caught up to her in the Literature aisle she already had two books in her hand. And she was scanning the shelf for another. "I've been looking for these titles for a month, it's..amazing that they have them." She said happily, with a slight droll tone.

"Why didn't you tell me you'd been seeking them, I would have got them for you sooner?" dad asked.

"Their not that important." She said easily. It was obvious my mother was lost in her book heaven; if she had more than five books around her she was gone, something I always really envied about her, well at least since I learned to read, I enjoy it immensely, but I don't get lost in books like mom does.

"Anything you see Nessie?" she asked me still glancing through and fingering a few of the titles.

I shrugged, "I like what you read, I can just read yours." I smiled to her gently. I winced, my mouth was still hurting, the ache had started to die down but it seemed as though it was starting to throb. "You know, I need to run to the restroom, uh, I'll be right back." I turned and slid past my dad.

"We'll be here" he said gently, I nodded and left for the restroom. I tried to locate the directory signs but couldn't find them so I headed back to the entrance where the checkout counter was and saw the two girls from when I first entered. One was on the phone and the other with glasses was now at the computer.

"Excuse me, where's the restroom?"I asked lightly. The girl looked up to me and just paused, she slid the glasses up her head to wear them as a headband, after a few seconds of way awkward silence I guess she noticed she was making me uncomfortable because she responded with "sorry, straight down through 'History' and to your left." I looked to where she pointed, gave her a smile and said 'thanks' before turning and quickly making my way towards the direction she had pointed.

That was weird, I wasn't to sure why, but I felt as though she were studying me, she acted so …strange. And another thing that was strange was that she seemed familiar; like I had seen her somewhere before. I had a stellar memory and there is no way I could have forgotten her, even though she had a nerdy look to her, she was quite pretty, beautiful actually, and you just don't forget faces with that much glamour. Well not with me being surrounded by my family and their being beyond human perfection, if they weren't related and they were considered 'hot' that is something my family remembered.

I walked straight to the sink when I entered the bathroom, and quickly rinsed my mouth with cold water. My gums were throbbing and there was a strange taste in my mouth, I even went so far as to gurgle the liquid in my mouth before spitting. I studied my gums in the mirror, then stood back and examined myself.

I smoothed my hair down in the back and tucked the front locks behind my ears, after using the restroom and washing my hands I headed out of the bathroom and back to the checkout counter. I slowly walked back up to the counter and waited patiently for the girl with the magazine to notice me, the nerdy girl wasn't behind the counter and I was a little put out, I was hoping to get another look at her in hopes that I would notice something about that would jog my memory about who she reminded me of, or where I had seen her before. After a few moments of just standing there I was beginning to feel a little stupid, so I spoke up.

"Excuse me?" I paused, waiting for her attention.

"Yeah?" she responded, flipping a page of the fashion magazine.

I was a little taken back by how rude the girl was, I was accustomed to classic respect, looking at someone in the eye when addressing them, maybe it was due to the fact that my dad was about 100 years old and he was a full believer in respect and social manners to all others.

"Sorry…I, don't mean to bother you, I was just trying to find out what time the apparel l store opens?" I drummed my fingers lightly on the counter as I watched her.

"Whole shopping division opens at 6." She said in a bored tone, her hair covered most her face, I never saw her complete face but from the profile I managed to get a look at I could tell she was attractive too and how she behaved towards me led me to think she was a total snob.

I gave a slight nod, not that she saw it or anything and tossed her a "thanks", before turning and heading back towards my folks.

I grabbed a book on the way back from the "Best Seller" Teen section. I handed it to my dad and watched as he observed the cover, he looked to me and arched a brow and with a crooked smirk said, "Vampire Academy" he smiled at me, in mockery I am sure of the title I'd chosen "a little different from your customary interests isn't it?" he finished.

I shrugged and smiled at him, "I think their funny. Sides, any book is a good book." I said brightly. Mom looked to me and smiled.

"Um, clerk lady says, the whole mall division is open. They apparently all open way early, you mind if I go next door?" I asked lightly, twisting a strand of my hair around my finger, looking between my mom and dad.

My parents were still weird about the going and doing on my own thing, which even though it bugged the snot out of me, I could kind of see why they acted like they did. After all I had robbed them of about seven years of 'childhood goodness'. Normal parents with kids that aged at a correct pace were always emotional about their kids getting older, my parents were the same, yet with their particular situations and mine they reluctantly,(I thought), allowed me privileges that suited my physical form.

My dad looked to my mom, and I turned to her as well, she gave me an uncertain nod. I smiled and gave my dad a final glance before heading back the way I had just come.


	8. First Impressions

"We'll catch up in a few minutes." My dad said turning to watch me go. I nodded and walked quickly out of the store and out into the freezing cold air. I was way past positive that it hadn't been this cold about twenty minutes ago when we first entered the store; it was like the temperature had dropped forty degrees just while we were inside, geeze.

I'd noticed there were a few more cars out in the lot, but not enough in my opinion for all of the stores to be open and running. I crossed my arms over my chest and allowed a slight shiver and then walked quickly to the large sliding doors of "Fay's Fashion", I had a naturally high temp, running at about 103, so when it was cold outside I felt it more so than most normal people would, though I had tough skin so the problem was more internal than external. Normally it didn't bother me at all, because of my abnormal speed, but when I was out in public and had to uphold human tendencies; that's when I would normally feel it, moving at such a slow pace and all. So when I entered the store and the heater hit me full blast I could feel my body start to slightly numb, the rush of heat working its magic just as fast as the biting cold had worked it's.

The store was huge, this place was definitely going to be a Cullen fave, if not the whole family's then at least Alice's. Clothing, jewelry and little trinkets of sorts were everywhere; there was a circular desk right up the main walkway, just like the book store. But there was no one working the register. As I made my way further into the fashion haven, I was awed. The clothes were way exotic, and way small, some items I was unsure of them being underwear or tops, by how much little fabric there was anyone could think the same.

The large jewelry display caught my attention as I slowly glided past it, all of the stones were of a red rock, resembling a ruby, but yet the stones had more cut than a ruby would allow, and you could see through a ruby fully, this stone not at all, they were gorgeous, cuts and shapes in all sizes, ranging from $11,000 to about 3 mill, choked on my own tongue and ran my eyes back over the price of the large stone, and then again glanced back around the store. If their merchandise was this expensive, shouldn't their be like people over here watching just this section.

During my second glance around the store in search of an employee, I located the shoe section, with a last unbelievable huff I made my way over to the shoes. It took a couple seconds to walk the aisles and find the sports section, I could smell the rubber of the soles and shoes in question quite distinctly, enough so, that I didn't have to walk down towards the front of the store, I knew the tennis shoes were in the back, talk about tracking, huh.

I scanned the shoes quickly; I ended up grabbing a pair of "Perla 'vue" runners, in half a size larger than what I wore now, just for future accommodations, and a pair of white "Lu Mei" sandals, and took my items to the front, I had just about hit the check-out counter when the door opened and a tall woman entered, turned and looked back the way from which she had just come, she was speaking in a tongue I had never heard before, which intrigued me slightly, I have to admit, I am a little proud of the bilingual tongue I have, Grams, Gremma and Dad are the only one's that top me in it, but to hold that over uncle Emmett is a joy I will have forever. The woman and little girl were very similar in appearance, no denying it, they were related, the little girl couldn't be older than five and the woman no older than thirty, both had cream colored skin, pale blue eyes and long blonde hair, the little girls fell in ringlets around her shoulders, much like mine had when I was smaller. The lady was dressed to maximum in an off white skirt suit, she glanced at me, then to the checkout station and then back to me.

"Have you been waiting long miel?" came her soft Transylvanian accented voice, Transylvanian yet she was using French vocabulary, that was a little more than way weird; she apparently worked here, proof of that made clear as she made her way around the desk and dropped her bags in the corner of the small cubicle area. "I am sorry for the hold up" her voice was as smooth as honey, she was gorgeous as well, I was beginning to think that this mall with all it's glamour only hired people with certain features, like the mall was decked out so totally awesome that somebody didn't want to muck up the stores with plain looking employees, now there's a lawsuit.

"No mam, I just finished." I said placing my two items on the counter, as the woman scanned my items and began wrapping them in separate boxes I reached into my jean pocket and pulled out my credit card, "I have a daughter here on hand, though I have no idea where she has gotten off to" she said with a sweet smile again, this woman reminded me a lot of Gremma, she was just like a constant sweet. As if on clock work the girl from next door with short platinum blonde hair that fell into her face, came quickly into the room, almost at a skip, she halted when she saw the woman behind the register, or at least I think that's why she stopped, she gave me a once over and moved towards us.

"Ah, here she is" the woman said as she placed the two boxes in a bag and pushed it towards me, she hit a key on the register and said, "$329.18 cher'ie". My attention had been on the girl from next door sorely because her attention had been on me, I didn't know what it was, but something about her freaked me out, I could tell just by the way she was looking at me, that she didn't like me, it's actually a little hard to describe how I was feeling, I felt…threatened, never had I felt like this before, not even when I was younger and the 'ancients' were after me, and it was making me…mad. I could feel my blood picking up pace, it was more like an instinct, or could be considered as much for all the control I had over it.

It was only the arms braced on the counter on either side of me, entrapping me in the small space and the voice that brought my attention back to the woman at the register, "Je m'en occuperai, $329 avez-vous dit ?" my dad's voice had the calming effect apparently needed for me at this moment, because my anger gauge dropped drastically, enough so for me to release a breath I hadn't known I was holding.

I looked up in time to see the woman give him a knowing smile and a slight nod, "Il y a même $350, garder le changement." He said while dropping the bills on the counter, the entire time while he was removing the cash from his interior jacket pocket, he had been staring down the girl who had just entered, only 15 or 20 seconds of the stare down had taken place, but whatever the girl had gotten from dad's gaze had her rolling her eyes and making her way to the woman behind the counter, in other words she'd gotten the warning. I'm pretty sure it was the ever so famous glare of 'threat -meet -cub, now -threat -meet -papa bear' which I appreciated most certainly right now. He picked up my bag, and with his free hand guided me to the door, "Thanks" I said to the woman who had helped me, but as I left the counter, I didn't fail to catch the final glare shot my way. When I stepped outside I heard my dad, "You ladies have a nice day", and I turned to see him turn back to me, he gave me a grin and once again placed his hand on my back, in a subtle way to 'get me moving'.

I knew he had probably 'heard' me get angry, but if so, he wasn't saying anything about it. I chewed at my bottom lip nervously, I was still a little bothered by the girl and her obvious dislike of me, I hadn't done anything! I sighed and then spoke, "Where's mom?"

"In the car, I told her I would inform you we were finished ." he said, as he placed his sunglasses on and straightened his collar in an effort to cover any illumination that could be seen from his skin, the day wasn't bright, but he was I suppose simply being cautious. "Thanks for the shoes" I said, as I swung the bag slightly at my side. He only smirked at me, I gave him a sly smile, "You know, I could have put it on my card…" "For such a limited amount?" he said in a questioning tone.

"Dad, what good is a credit card, if I don't get to use it, I mean I have swiped it like twice; for a three year old card, it's practically new." I said drily.

"Nessie, that's for emergencies, and possibly necessities should I or your mother not be present to make available to you." He said with a slight grin, it was quite funny, that thought. Anything I had ever asked for or even not asked for, but had shown some interest in at some random time, somehow always showed up in our house. Not a total pain, mind reading, I guess.

"You think that now." He said his grin pulling up into a smirk.

I stopped where I was, and gave him a look of annoyance; he didn't pause till a half second later and turned to look at me. He gave a soft smile and took the step back to me wrapping his arm around my shoulders, I felt him kiss the top of my head before he said, "Forgive me, that's all I picked up however, your getting better with your shield," he said, I paused for a moment in wonderment, I hadn't actually been focusing on keeping it up, "Not to sure that's a good thing, now that you'll be attending school." He said.

"You'll just have to do what other parent's do" I said softly. He grinned and then said, "Oh, and what is that?". "Hope for the best" I said giving him my own cheeky grin, "besides you have a bit of an advantage over the other parent's, you'll be there with me, and for whatever I need you for." I said softly, sad but true, I was nervous about school, but at the same time a little excited about it, I just was more worried about messing up, or giving something away and the ever feared solution of packing up and moving out.

"Always" dad said as he kissed my head again. I smiled. He had got me to his side of the car and was pulling the door open for me when I asked him, "Are we heading back now?" I handed the bag to my mom, and climbed into the backseat.

"Not just yet, we're going to make another quick stop." He said climbing in and shutting the door.

I was pretty sure Gremma and Gram's were still 'occupied' with one another, and had no desire to go back home yet.

"So wha'd you find?" mom asked turning in her seat.

"Perla runners and Lu Me sandals" I said gesturing to the bag she still held in her lap.

"Ah. Alice and Rosie will like that." She said with a smile and turned back in her seat to fasten her seat belt. Drawing my attention back to the shoes, of course had me thinking on the sales girl, and again pondering what it was I had unknowingly done to upset her.

It was a little upsetting, if only for the fact that she worked their and it was a rather nice store. But I wasn't going to come back and chance running into her again, 'I'd never felt like that before. So, threatened, that I actually wanted to hurt somebody' I shuddered and looked back up front, dad had us pulling out of the turn in, I sighed relieved to be putting distance between me and the girl.


	9. Jacob's Arrival

I sat curled up in the large overstuffed arm chair in the living room, working with my new iphone. That had been dads other stop. He'd said I'd need one since I was going to be "out and about" and we more than likely would have separate classes given our obvious age difference's, I didn't think I really needed it, I mean my parent's, my aunts and uncles, they were all right there with me if I needed one of them, dad kind of sold me on it when he said it was either the phone or have an open head link. Yeah, I totally went for the phone.

I was scrolling through the apps when my aunt Rosie came into the room, I could still hear dad on the piano, where he had retreated to after inserting all of the family's numbers on my phone mom had left with uncle J and aunt Alice to go and pick up some stuff from a guy named Jenks. It was stuff for me. Forged documents that would let me register with my parents later this afternoon.

"Are you still playing with that thing?" she asked with a smile. She crawled into the chair with me; I smiled and scooted over to give her more room. "I'm downloading stuff" I said moving the phone to rest on my knee allowing her to see the screen as well. She smiled at me and slipped her hand behind my head and started playing with my hair. I leaned my head on her shoulder to give her better access to my hair.

"It's really neat , the guy who sold it to us showed me all these neat things you can do with it, there are these little things called apps, and you can get games and stuff. Though the one I've been attempting, does nothing more but annoy me, I'm not really good at it." I said, while still running my finger over the screen to perform miscellaneous actions.

"You and me both sweetie." Rosie said with a gorgeous smile.

I frowned a little, Aunt Rosie was like the pinnacle of beauty, and when she smiled it reminded me of the woman this morning and even the other two older girls, I wanted to tell her how I had felt this morning, well really I just wanted to vent I think, which was odd in itself, again, not really a noise maker, me. I felt her hand pause on the back of my head and heard the serious concern in her voice, "What's wrong Nessie?" she said sitting up a little to get a better look at my face, more to probably see my reaction when I responded to her, she knew me to well, and like past encounters of this sort she knew I would down play any problem I had, so as to not upset anyone. Actually, she knew me very well, I gave her a slight smile, "Nothing, Rosie, I…" I paused what I was saying to listen charily, my eyes drifted to the wall as I listened more intently and the noise sounded again, this time carrying a bit, due to the far distance from where it sourced, it had to be almost half a mile out.

Rosie let out an annoyed huff and rolled her eyes, shifting to move herself up, my grin grew wide as it always did when I heard that wonderful, heart - stopping sound. I was up and off the wide chair in a split second and running for the door, phone still grasped in hand, I passed the living room and only heard the last of dad's 'Renesmee, don't run', before flying out of the front door and off the porch to stand in the yard, I scanned the area and searched the distant wood's for a glimpse of my oncoming happiness.

A howl sounded again, and I jerked to my left to gaze out into the surrounding woods in the distance, and after a few agonizing moments, I felt a much enjoyable heat run up through my arms, and my smile I knew had to have grown even larger as Jake came running out from the trees at an incredibly fast rate, well an average rate for herself and her family, but for any other person in the world that was not either a shape shifter or a vampire, the speed was unfathomable. He wore only a pair of khaki cut-offs that ended right at his knees, his hair had grown back out and was flying behind him as he continued towards the house, towards me.

I took off towards him as well and with us both at our unnatural speeds, we were closer to each other faster, and at about three feet away from him, I threw myself into his arms. I wrapped my arms around his neck and new I must be close to suffocating him. His arms were very tight around me as well, and I loved it. I had missed it, so much, it was silly really, but I felt complete, whole.; as I always did when he was around, especially when he 'returned' from his elongated visits to La' Push.

"Ah, Nessie", he said with a smirk in his tone, I knew he was smiling. I didn't want to let him go. I burrowed my head into his shoulder, breathing deep. He smelled wonderful; he always did, well to me anyway. Everybody else commented that he reeked, all except for my Grams and Gremma, they never made any comment about him, if it was not positive. To me though, he smelled fresh, of earth, like when we go out to hunt in the early morning, right after a light rain, it was wonderful. He squeezed me for a second and then set me down on my feet, he was extremely tall, about two feet taller than my dad, and a foot over Uncle Emmett. Glancing me over, he smiled at and said, "Yep, just like I left ya".

I smiled at him again and for a second time hugged him tightly.

"Good to know somebody missed me." He said, a smirk again sounding in his voice. He rubbed my hair and pulled me to his side as he started to walk towards the house.

"More than anything." I said with emphasis on the word 'anything'.

Jake gave a light laugh, as we continued to the house, "Ooh, nice toy. Yours?" he asked after noticing the phone in my hand.

I glanced at it, hitting the button I knew that would open the main screen and then handed it to him, he took it from me and examined it, shuffling through the apps I had installed. "Sweet! Someone's been a good girl." He said with another grin towards me and then looked back at the phone.

I rolled my eyes and smiled, "Whatever, dad's insisting I have it for school. Just incase I need to get him or mom for whatever." I wrapped my now free hand around his waist and clutched my hands together, without breaking our pace.

Jake paused, with a confused look on his dark, handsome face, "Is it really needed, I mean can't he just you know, pull that creepy crap talent of invading your mind?" he questioned. I grinned at his choice of words.

"That 'creepy crap talent' as you entitle it, has been responsible, numerous times I'll kindly add, for preventing what could have been calamitous and even intermittently critical incidents." My dad's voice was calm in response.

We both jerked in response to his voice, how in the world had we not heard him come out.

Edward stood on the porch, his hands tucked in his pockets. A smirk appeared on his face, and his eyebrow cocked, it was an expression Jake was all too familiar with. " You think I don't know what that means, I know what that means, and I'd ask 'prevents' or instigates?" Jake said with a devious smirk of his own.

I stepped back and glanced at him and back to my dad, who had almost an evil smile of his own planted on his face. I knew that my dad and Jake had this weird connection thingy, Dad could hear Jake's thoughts in the first place and Jake with shape shifting ability was also susceptible to communication with my dad when in his wolf form, way weird. But right now all communication was being done through the eyes, and I wasn't in the convo.

The screen door opened and Rosalie appeared just to the side of Edward, a scowl on her face. "The house wasn't even fully aired out yet." She said crossing her arms and shooting a glare at Jake.

Edward turned to look at her with a casual smile and then back to Jake, with humor in his eyes. Dad was obviously enjoying the thoughts he couldn't help but catch from the two acquainted rivals.

"Aww, 'Princess', did you miss me?" he asked sarcastically.

"Does anyone ever?" she retorted.

"Actually Blondie, this little piece of perfect right here," he said, giving me a quick squeeze, "confirmed she's missed me more than 'anything'." He said with a bright smile.

"She's half human, there has to be one flaw or two." Rosalie said calmly with a smirk.

"Oh, I agree completely space waste, but her direct relations can't really be considered her personal flaws." He said with a lift of his eye-brows.

"Listen dog, yo…." Rosalie started in a temper but she was quickly cut off by Edward, "Easy Rose, you two can pick up with this little reunion later, Bella and Alice are just down the road." He stated.

I quickly turned to Jake, "You are going with us, aren't you?" the question I had to admit was asked with a bit of urgency, well I mean really he'd just got back, and I was expected to give a "hi – bye – fly" performance? No way.

"Yep, need to get cleaned up though, how long I got Eddie-boy?" he asked.

Edward cocked an eyebrow, "Just about fifteen minutes, pup." He countered.

Jake smirked at my dad and then squeezed me again, "Plenty of time." And took off around the house towards the guest house where he stayed.

I smiled at my dad and then ran in the house to change.

The folder I held in my hand, contained documents that documented my mother as Isabell Mason and me as, wha-lah, Renesemee Cullen. Mom said since it was my first time round there wasn't really a problem with using my birth name.

Though the rest of the information, minus my birth date, was all new. I had a new social security card, a re-print birth certificate and documentation of other schools I had attended in the past that made me eligible for the 7th grade. My mom had all the same documents as well.

A sharp pain shot through my mouth and I instantly brought my hand to my mouth. I used my thumb to push on my upper gum, the pain had not diminished completely from my mouth but as fast as it had come it was now numbing. I wanted to rinse my mouth out, the cool water had helped before, and I would go straight to the bathroom when we got to the school. Dad was driving at an obnoxiously slow rate, and I could tell he was a little agitated only because Jake on the motorbike, just a few moments ago behind us, was now cutting in front of him.

Mom sighed and smiled slightly, "He's just trying to aggravate you." She said.

"Well, he's succeeding." Dad replied quickly. I smiled as I watched Jake slow slightly and move to the slow lane, he braked enough to fall in line right beside us, and gave a questioning look. I motioned to my mother, he gave a knowing nod and then revved his engine.

Mom gave him a disapproving frown, he wasn't wearing a helmet and his hair wasn't tied back, he had simply his jacket over a black t-shirt, jeans and boots.

Jake sped up again and pulled back in front of dad, "You know if I ran him off the road, he'd be fine." Dad said assuring my mom. Mom only smirked.


	10. Quailton High

"Quailton High." Jacob said, standing behind me and squeezing my shoulders. We were all actually taking in our surroundings. "Little dark and dank aint it?" he said to no one in particular.

"Thanks for that mutt, without your thorough insight; we might not have come to that same conclusion." Rose replied sarcastically as she walked around him and started for the large staircase that was in front of us. Emmett simply gave a bright smile and popped him on the back as he followed after Rose.

I remained where I was, taking in the large building, with it's gray bricks and white rimmed windows. Their was moss that decorated the top of the building, from the outside the the building looked more like a church rather than a school.

"Not to intimidating huh?" Jake said as he stepped to my side and nudged me. I gave him a quick smile and then turned my attention back to the school. In the back there were three tennis courts, one set up for basketball, another for volleyball and the other for the original tennis. Many students decorated the courts already participating in the required sports for the current court they were on. The wooded area was a lush green behind the courts and surrounded the school to allow the only one exit which just so happened to be the only entrance as well.

I was pulled out of my observing when I felt a light pinch at my jacket, it was my mother, "Come on" she said as she ascended the stairs hand in hand wit dad. Jake smiled at me, through his arm around my shoulders and started walking after my mom and dad. I looked around the front entrance and read a couple of the plaques that were mounted outside the doors.

"Nessie, they'll still be here when we leave, let's go, come on." She said with a light laugh and pulled Jasper into the school.

Edward caught the door that was closing behind Jasper, and held it for Bella, she walked quickly after Alice, I walked quickly over to him, smiled lightly and walked through.

"Thank you footman!" I heard Jake chirp and turned in time to see him walk through the door dad was still holding. My dad was suppressing a smile and cocking an eyebrow at Jake. He walked in after him and gave me a wink as he strode past me to catch up with mom.

The inside of the school was really as I had expected it to be. To the left of the long hallway and right at the entrance was the main office, where through the glass window's I could see aunt Rose speaking with an older white haired lady who appeared to be copying something, uncle Emmett who was leaning against the counter beside her and aunt Alice and Uncle Jasper standing off to the side, mom and dad hadn't gone in yet, they were standing outside the office, for the large entry area, the standing room in the office was very limited. Then to the right were restrooms for the everyday visitor's convenience, then the hall ran long and narrow, straight ahead, along the walls were doors that I was sure led to classrooms, and in between the doors along the length of the walls were blue lockers. Halfway down the hallway the area widened and there resided a large stairwell that led to the second level of the building. Right when you enter if you looked up you could see the second level barred off by a black banister. A yellow and blue flag hung on the small wall that was visible from where she stood.

"Hey, check this out." Jake said as he walked over to the left side wall and examined the pictures that hung their, many that hung were those of previous graduating classes, and special school teams. I followed him over and glanced at what he was looking at. The wrestling team, of course he would go for the guys that stood bigger than the others, most of the guy's were huge. All about the same size or bigger even, than Uncle Emmett.

"I could take em." Jake said with a grin. I smiled and rolled my eyes. He only grinned back at me.

"Nessie.." my dad called from behind me, Emmett and Rosie were just coming out of the office, and dad was again holding the door for my mom and gesturing to me to follow. I turned back to Jake and said, "I'll be right back." Then walked quickly to dad and preceded him into the office.

The office smelled strongly of coffee and pencil shavings, not a pleasant smell but no one made notice of the foul smell. The white haired lady walked up to the other side of the desk with a packet of papers, and handed them to Jasper. "There you go hon, your locker information is on the yellow card." She said in a low strange voice.

Dad smirked and swiped at his chin, obviously he was hearing the woman's thought s and they were apparently amusing. Jasper gave a nod to the lady after accepting his papers and then after shooting Edward a knowing look escorted Alice out of the office.

"We'll wait for you out here." She said sweetly, before exiting.

Mom smiled at her and the stepped up to the space Alice and Jasper had just vacated.

"I take it, you're with this group?" the woman said gesturing to Alice and Jasper outside the door.

"Yes, sibling!"' mom said with a roll of her eyes and a smile. The lady then proceeded to register her, without a hitch, in no time at all mom was in the computer under a fake name and identity, when she was handed her packet she thanked the woman and stepped back letting dad, who just took my folder from me and slipped a folded sheet of paper from his pocket inside, step up; mom rubbed my arm and smiled.

Dad gave a brilliant smile to the woman who had gone starry eyed when he stepped up and first spoke to her.

"It seems your work is never done." He said kindly. The woman simply stared and then said, "There's normally another young lady present, she called out today." She had kept her eyes on dad the entire time, without blinking.

"Well, I surely hope they appreciate the effort you put forward in keeping matters running efficiently around here." He told her.

She gave a dumb looking smile and after a moment stepped back and said, "You need sophomore registration papers," she stated and then frantically began looking around.

Dad reached down and placed his hand over her's, her head jerked up to look at him and she was gone again, "Yes, I do need the correct documents for registering myself but also the forms for a student that shall be entering the eighth grade, my younger sister to be precise." He said softly.

The woman gave a soft frown, "Oh, I'm afraid all students 16 and younger must have a parent or current guardian present to register." She said lowly.

Dad smiled and then said, "Yes I understand, there is written consent present with my sister's documents, I trust that will suffice?" he said, offering the woman my folder and a crooked smile.

"Why…yes…yes, that should be fine" she spoke as though she were completely oblivious of what she were saying. And by simply glancing at my dad's profile, it was obvious he was glamouring her, so she probably didn't realize what she was saying.

The lady took my folder and stepped over to a large printer/ copier and began to scan the documents from the folder into the computer. Dad looked at me and smirked, 'Is that what one would call a white lie?' I questioned in my mind raising my eyebrows. Dad suppressed a laugh and turned his attention back to the woman who stepped up with a sheet of paper and a concerned expression on her face.

"I'm sorry, it appears that Calculus A has already met it's capacity, is there another math you would be interested in?" she asked my dad.

"Actually I was hoping to attend the class to maintain my success with the subject, I'll be instructing a few of your other students in this course outside of class and was hoping to have first hand insight to the scheduled material, so if there is any possible way you can admit one more to the classes' number I would be especially grateful." Dad finished. Even I could hear the "honey" that dripped from his voice.

"Let me see what I can do" the woman said lightly and then turned and picked up the phone from her desk.

Dad turned to look at my mom, and gave a light sigh, through the window Emmett was gesturing to dad, it looked like he was inquiring as to what was taking so long. Dad straightened his jacket and simply folded his arms over his chest and then gave a slight nod to the woman on the phone. Emmett rolled his eyes, and moved over to Rosie.

Dad turned back around when the woman's breathing slightly hastened as she moved to hang up the phone. "Alright, it's done. We managed to get you an extra spot in the class, but don't let the word spread." She said with a smile.

"Thank you, very much mam, for your time and efforts." Dad said and gave her a full grin. The woman smiled at him and then clicked a few things on the computer and a few moments later we were given our schedules and were instructed to go and find our lockers.

Dad handed me my schedule and I observed it thoroughly. Algebra, Physical Science, History of the early 1800's to Present Day, Lunch, P.E. and Honors English. Well, it wasn't to bad, I ended up having Honors English and lunch with my family, though that's not really a coincidence, the whole school has lunch at the same time, but there are apparently three lunch room's, I guess your just stuffed into a lunch room based on registration timing. I kind of figured to though about English, mom had said something about us all signing up for it, well there you go.

Algebra, Physical Science, and History of the early 1800's I was on my own. P.E. however I happened to have with uncle Emmett and Rosie, I knew that was no coincidence, and I stopped right outside the door from where I had been allowing my other senses beside's sight to guide me, and looked to my mom and dad expectantly.

"I thought we agreed on one class." I said dryly, dropping my hand to my side.

"That was before we knew P.E. was a requirement for all 9th graders and below." My mom said.

I sighed, they made me sound like a kindergartner, I didn't even sign up for P.E., I had never had to restrain myself before, well, ok, for little times, like when around Grandpa Charlie or going out to the malls and stuff, like that but none of that was ever over exerting myself, I wasn't really active, now I had a period in the day where I had to be active, it made me nervous. What if I slipped up, what if…, I completely stopped my mind's 'what if' thinking process when I felt a hand at my chin, pulling my face up. My dad stood in front of me with a small smile, "You don't have to do this Nessie, you can still change your mind, no harm done. But if we're going to do this, it's going to be done the right way" he'd lowered his hands to my shoulders.

"I want to do it, but I kind of feel like I am being babysat" I said steadily, looking away from him.

"With Emmett?" Alice asked in a slight bell like laugh, as she gently pulled on Jasper who was smiling at me as well.

Uncle Emmett stepped up to me and through his large arm around my shoulder squeezing me slightly, "For real 'cee-ceece', think of it like a party, and these four ain't invited" he said gesturing towards my parents, Alice and Jasper.


	11. It starts!

I smiled and rolled my eyes, and stopped suddenly. Dad rolled his eyes and said, "He'll be back shortly." With an all telling look.

"Who, the pup? Yeah, he's makin use of the woods." Emmett sounded.

"Emmett, can you at least try to sound like you have a little decorum?" Dad voiced sternly.

"What?" he said holding his hands up, in gesture.

Mom started shaking her head and said, "Let's just, see about the lockers." She turned and headed down the long hall reading her paper. I couldn't help but look out the entrance, "Come on Nessie, he'll catch up." Rosie said, with a pat on my back. I reluctantly followed them.

"Ok, locker's are, 146 and 148 blue hall" Alice said as she skimmed her schedule student info box, and then leaned over Jasper to check his.

"Blue hall 142 and 144, I hope these are top locker's" Rose said as she read from the two schedules she held in her hand.

"Sweet, looks like we don't got to wander far, to find each other" Emmett said with a grin.

"Appears that way, blue hall, 150 and 152" dad said, taking my mothers hand.

I didn't remember seeing the word blue at all on my sheet, I searched it again and sighed then said, "Green hall, 118." I looked up at them, in time to see my parents turn to look at me. Rosie stepped back to me and gently took hold of my sheet.

"Yep, green hall." Rosie said in agreement.

I had the sudden urge to deck her and tell her to back off, like, who was she to confirm for me, like I didn't know what I was talking about or was somehow confused about the color of the hall, she just made me feel like I was helpless, like a little kid, or something. I looked at her sharply and jerked my paper away, "I got it, thanks" I said roughly and pushed past her.

I crunched the sheet in my hand and quickly made my way past the others, this was getting ridiculous. Babysitters in class, babysitters outside of class and now I had them reading for me, all of them were simply hounding me, my jaw tightened as I gritted my teeth making my upper jaw soar. Why couldn't they understand that I am a proficient girl? I quickly turned the corner and kept at my high paced speed, due to my seething resentment of Rosie's last actions played upon me I was a little out of it, when I was jerked to a halt, and spun around.

I stared angrily, only for a split moment into the golden eyes that glared down at me. When I saw my dad's angry expression, my resolve died quickly. My dad was one of those people that you could tell his mood through his eyes, He was almost always smiling, but when he was mad, you could read it in his eyes, so you know he was royally irate when all his facial features signified the emotion he was feeling at present.

"Renesmee Carlie Cullen, I haven't any idea what the problem is here, and to be perfectly honest I'm not relatively concerned with it at the moment. First and foremost, when your mother or I address you, you respond, is that understood?" he asked severely. I hadn't even heard him call me, or my mother; I was a bit confused by that, and looking at him I knew he wanted a response, not trusting myself to speak I simply nodded.

I have never handled being reprimanded well, which is not such a big problem considering I can count on one hand how many times I have actually been reprimanded, but in any case whenever it happened, I would normally, sad to say, burst into tears, and it appeared that this time was no different. I couldn't look at my dad, again I felt embarrassed about my behavior, I was angry with myself for getting so uptight, and upset with myself still for not knowing the cause of my tantrum. The tears were streaming down my face , and they tickled my cheek slightly, dad still had me by the tops of my arms so I couldn't wipe at my face, so I craned my neck slightly so that I could wipe my face on my right shoulder. Dad released my arms and wrapped his around me, pulling me into a hug. I instantly wrapped my arms around his neck when they were free.

"I'm sorry" I said through low hiccoughs'.

"Calm down Renesmee, your fine love, just calm down" dad whispered into my hair. He began to sway slightly and the movement helped calm me, I took a deep breath, and sighed against his jacket. I felt dad kiss my head and then heard him speak again calmly, "Your behavior back there was inexcusable. It was actually quite deplorable; you've never displayed that kind of behavior before. Rose was quite hurt by your abrupt 'attack' on her." He said still swaying gently to soothe me.

"I know, I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me" I voiced raggedly. Dad gave me another light squeeze and then pulled me back from him, "That makes the lot of us" he said, with an offered smirk. I used my sleeve to dry my eyes, my dad would have offered me his handkerchief, yes - I know he still carries the little things, but he didn't have one on him today. They are really hardly ever used, you know considering that everyone in the family is, well, dead and all and the bodies functions are no longer issues, well except for mine, but again, I hardly every cry, so…. After swiping at my face with my sleeves, dad cupped my face and used his thumbs to remove the moisture I had left behind. I hiccoughed again and gently placed my hand on his cheek, expressing how truly sorry I was to him. He gave his all famous smirk and pulled my wrist down slightly so that he could kiss the palm of my hand. "I know sweetheart" he said gently, before kissing my head again. He stepped back a little and then asked if I needed the restroom, I told him no and then he steered me back the way I had stormed from.

"Where were you headed anyway?" he asked a bit comically, I think he was trying to lighten the mood.

"No idea" I said with a shy smile. When we rounded the corner, I could see my family farther down the opposite side of the hall I had taken, aunt Alice, uncle Jasper and Mom, were all at there lockers, examining the inside of them. Aunt Rosie stood facing one with her arms crossed, and she really did look sad, Uncle Emmett was massaging her shoulders over her jean jacket and whispering into her ear. As we approached them, I didn't stop at all before throwing myself at Aunt Rosie and hugging her tightly. She let her arms down and hugged me back tightly. "I'm sorry" the words were muffled by her hair and jacket but she heard me well enough. "Me too, sweetie. I'm sorry, I hurt your feelings." She said patting my back.

"You didn't it's just, me" I said stepping back and straightening my top. Aunt Rosie smiled at me and pushed my hair back behind my shoulder. Alice then took that time to step up with her bright smile and say, "Well, guess what 'Ness' Emmett debunked those other two lockers and their both empty, which means we can probably get your locker moved to over here with ours".

"It's probably a grade level thing." I said lowly. Just then I noticed I was no longer holding my schedule; I looked around me and didn't see it, I looked back up to my dad who was just now opening his locker, "I think I dropped my schedule back there", I said in a small voice.

Dad looked at me and then back down the hall from where we had just come, turning back to me he said, "I'll go check", but I stopped him fast saying, "No, it's ok. I can go do it. I'll be right back." I said as I started backing away, and then turned to walk quickly back down the hall. Rounding the corner I saw my crumpled schedule lying on the floor just a few feet ahead of me. I walked over to it, picked it up and tried to smooth the damage my grip had done. It seemed like a lost cause, soon I gave up, sighed and puffed at my bangs, I noticed up on the wall a green hanging sign with white letters, declaring the hall the 'GREEN' hall. Though looking around it, it was more than obvious the hall wasn't green but gray. There were plenty of lockers sure, it must be a typo or something, but then again that's kind of a serious typo. I walked up to the set of lockers I was standing by, '96', '98', '100' and they were still progressing up, I looked back at my schedule and to the student info box, Green hall, locker 118. I walked the distance up the hall to my designated locker. I counted all the way up to the far end of the hall, where my top locker resided. Well, there was a pro, I guess, having a top locker. It was a center locker to, like smack dab in the middle of the long row, of lockers.

Stepping up to the lock, I read the combination to myself and concentrated on spinning the number dial, first right to '22' than left to '13' and then back right to '27'. I didn't even really need the combination, considering I could here the 'chinks' when the right notches passed by the pointer mark. I lifted the latch and with a slight tug pulled the door open.

Inside the locker on the back of the door, was a mirror, it seemed to be glued to the door, cause when I tried to pull it off with little force, it wouldn't budge, so no magnet there. The inside had a small shelf that divided the small space into two halves, and on the inside walls were stickers. A lot of "Girl Talk" stickers, all that described any other girl but herself, 'Diva', 'Princess' that kind of stuff, but other then that it was empty.

It was at that moment that the school bell sounded, she winced, she had failed to notice the bell was right behind her and slightly to the right. The once peacefully quiet hall was then being filled with the loud sounds of teens and their complaints, whether of how boring the class had just been or how much worse the next one was going to be, the idle chatter grew to a dull roar.

I tried to press myself closer to my locker as people started making their way around me, a lot stopped at their lockers to trade out books or to just talk with their locker neighbors. I stepped back and went to close my locker, a swift glance in the mirror had me halting that, and all I could do was stare at what I saw in the little mirror that hung on my door.


	12. Surprises Abound

It was the boy, the boy with gold hair, and what was even more well, unsettling, was that in the reflection, he was standing stark still, and looking at me. I took an easy breath and swallowed lightly. The utter surprise on the boy's face was unmistakable, he was every bit as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

I really didn't know what to do, I froze, standing their like a statue, I am such a dunce. What was he even doing here, ok so I knew what he was doing here the books he held in one hand against his leg was enough to state he attended here. My thoughts were broken when I noticed another boy, with the same color hair, and a girl that matched in coloring, appear beside him. The other boy, slapped at his books, in an attempt to make them fall to the ground, but the boy who hadn't turned his sight from me merely leaned down, as quick as a flash, I might add, to prevent himself from losing his books. He then turned an angry expression onto the other boy.

He was saying something, and whether it was due to the commotion going on around me, or the mere fact that I was stunned by the boy's appearance, I couldn't focus on what he was saying. The young girl that was with them stepped in between the two and looked as though she was trying to soothe the angry boy, but it was obvious the boy was aggravated about something as he started to speak to her, the pretty girl's smile slid from her face and then she and the 'new' boy that had arrived with her looked over to me.

I slammed my locker shut….. 'I slammed my locker!' what was wrong with me! I shut my eyes and took a breath. A few of the people who were passing me turned when the loud clang sounded and stared at both me and my now dented locker.

Students slowed as they walked by, seeing the obvious dent in my locker, the murmuring that I was picking up had me pegged as a 'freak' already. I huffed and took in another deep but quiet breath.

"Normally, folk's aim for a top locker, but uh, if yer that bent on having a bottom, the one under mine is free." A voice sounded next to me.

I instantly took a step back and looked at him. He gave a light grin as he turned his attention momentarily to the lock on his locker and pulled it open.

He looked back at me and his grin grew wider as he put a book in the small compartment and pulled out another one.

I looked back at my locker, "I uh, I thought I saw… saw a bug." I said stupidly.

He looked at my locker and then back at me and grinned again, "Not a bug person. Ok, you know that looks like it could be popped back into place, you want me to uh…" he trailed off pointing at my locker.

I looked at my locker and then back at him, "No, no, my…my brother can probably fix it for me." I folded the schedule and put it in my back pocket. I slid my hands into my back pocket so that I wouldn't fidget.

"Alrighty then," he said with another pretty smile. "Oh, I'm Daniel by the way, Daniel Rhyne and uh, you…are?" He prompted with another smile.

"Renesmee, Renesmee Cullen" I said offering my own nervous smile.

"Well, Renesmee Cullen, it's very nice to meet you." He said holding out a hand to me. I smiled at him and slowly took it, and gave him a light shake. I used my other hand to tuck my hair behind my ear. He laughed lightly and said, "See, I don't bite."

I couldn't help it, I let out a light laugh at the ironic remark, his hand tightened slightly on mine, "There we go, that's kind of what I've been waiting to see."

I gave him another light smile and was just about to pull my hand back when dad showed up right behind me.

"Everything ok Ness." He said. I pulled my hand back from Daniel's and used it to tuck the hair behind my other ear. Daniel stood up straighter and quirked a grin at dad.

"Umm, yeah. I, uh, I found my locker." I said turning and a little to quickly entered the code and pulled it open. Dad looked at my locker and observed the dent, "A little banged up" he said. I shrugged my shoulder at him.

"A little elbow grease and it can be popped back into place." Daniel said with another smirk to me.

"He offered to fix it for me." I said in an attempt to make conversation.

Dad smiled at him, took a hold of the locker door and with his fingers pressed the dented metal back into smooth perfection. "Well, that was nice of him."

There was a moment of pure awkwardness, and I was mortified by what was happening here.

"Hey, No problem man." He said taking a step back and grinning.

"Well as you can see, the problem's been fixed" dad said with a smile and shut the locker. "You ready Ness?" he said looking down at me.

"Yeah" I looked back to Daniel "uh, sorry, we gotta head out." I said stepping around him, dad's arm was around my shoulders.

"Hey, no prob. I gotta hit chem, but uh, I'll see ya around, huh?" he said taking off, in the direction dad had come from.

As soon as he rounded the corner, I rounded on dad, "What was that?" I demanded.

Dad was looking around slowly shooting glare's at other guy's as they walked by, most of them did glance in our direction but I was sure it had to be due to dad's daunting behavior.

"Ten minute's here and your already drawing attention that's driving me crazy." He said giving me a warning look, for what I didn't know, then turned me to make our way through the crowd back down the hall.

"Um, that's the first person I've met, and already I think you sent him the wrong signals." I said to him, "He's going to think I have a brother complex."

"Renesmee, believe me when I say his attention was far to focused on you for him to make any permanent pessimistic impressions of me." He said. "What'd happened to your locker?" he asked then.

I looked at him, "What?"

He shot me a look and smirked, "Picked it up from him, you're angry at the good fortune of obtaining a top locker?" he asked.

I sighed and then said, "I kind of bent it, when I closed it." He shot me another look. "It wasn't that bad, you saw it. It was an accident anyway, I thought I …I..saw.. something." I said quietly.

"Oh, and what was that?" he asked quietly, watching me as we walked.

No way was I going to tell him about the golden haired boy, I did my best also to "kick" him out of my mind and keep my thoughts private, he would totally freak out, for sure. "A…bug. I thought I saw a bug." He stopped and looked at me, his look clearly read that he thought I was crazy.

"What? You know I don't like them." I said with agitation, and walked ahead of him in the direction we were headed, rounding the corner I saw my family at the end of the hall conversing. I walked quickly over to them, it really was odd, watching all the other kids passing us in the hall slow down to check our little group out, my folks were really good at playing it off, like they didn't even notice they were being oggled by every passer by in the hall.

When I reached them I stepped up and between uncle Emmett and aunt Rose. My mom gave me a smile and a look that was silently asking what I thought of the place. "It's" I started and then looked around, "crowded." She smiled wider and then turned into my dad when he stepped up beside her and placed his arm around her waist. "I found my locker" I said pulling the piece of paper with my combination on it out of my pocket.

"And a friend." My dad said with a small smirk and a twitch of his eyebrows, aunt Alice obviously couldn't resist, her most always present smile grew wide, my dad wasn't actually subtle with his last statement, and it was obvious to all that he meant a boy, so when Alice chimed, "Like a "Boy friend?" I couldn't help but roll my eyes and glare at my dad, before responding, "His locker is right by mine, he was just introducing himself when da…Edward showed up." I said looking warily to dad.

He didn't say anything about me denting my locker so I figured there was no reason for me to mention it either.

"Nessie, the guys here are going to be all over you" she said excitedly, my dad huffed, stood straighter and shot her a look of annoyance. "What? You know it's true 'Eddie', Rose, Bella and I have you guys as deterrents, Nessie's open eye candy!" she said in a sing song voice.

"Thank you Alice" he said in a dry tone with a glare. Mom smiled and squeezed him tighter.

"Whatever 'sprite', we got her back" Emmett said reaching over and lightly hitting Jasper in the arm with a smile and nod for confirmation. Jasper lifted his head and smiled back at him.

I sighed, again noticing the pressure in my teeth, I grit them and then spoke, "Great, wonderful, can we go?" I made my way around them, and slowed my step when I noticed all the looks we were still getting. I couldn't help but glance at all the many faces that were surrounding us, all of them with the same look of 'awe'. I sighed and then paused, I turned and looked back to my folks with a wide smile, dad only smirked at me. I turned back around and through the crowd saw what had me smiling, Jake came walking up with Seth right on his heels, they were talking about the size of the school and how the school on the "res" was bigger.

I made my way slightly faster to them, not noticing anyone now, I jumped into Seth's arms when I was close enough.

"Aww, Nessie!" he said as he lifted me off the floor in a hug. Jake only laughed at my display, when I was set back on my feet I looked him over, a pair of khaki shorts and a red t-shirt, with worn flip-flops and his hair was wind blown, he had just run here.

"This is your surprise this trip." Jake said with a big smile. I smiled at him in approval. Jake had a habit of bringing me back gifts from his trips to Forks, this morning right after he had got cleaned up, he had made a show of 'searching' for my gift and then acted upset that he couldn't find it. My dad had given him an odd look, now I knew why; he knew the entire time Seth was coming.

"The best one ever." I stated with another big grin.

"Hey guy" my mom said as she stepped up to hug him. He held his breath, smiled and hugged her tightly; dad offered him a friendly welcoming smile. After setting mom down away from him he said, "Sorry it took so long, I had to check back on my mom before I left, Charlie sends his love."

"So your here for a while right?" I asked excitedly.

"Yep, for however long Jake here, let's me crash with him." He said putting his hands on his hips and smiling.

"As lovely as this little reunion is, I'd suggest we take it elsewhere. I don't find standing in the middle of a school hallway being gawked at the most appropriate place to have a little get together." Rosalie said with a roll of her eyes towards Jake and then she walked around him leaving the rest of us to follow.

I wrapped an arm around Jake's waist and we made to follow after her. The boy with the gold hair momentarily forgotten.


End file.
